


Whispers

by Adishailan



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Finn (Star Wars), Child Abuse, Child Soldiers, FN-2187 - Freeform, Finn Is A Badass, Finn-centric (Star Wars), Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Found Family, Gen, Harm to Children, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Jedi Finn (Star Wars), Kidnapping, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Finn (Star Wars), Personal Growth, Psychic Abilities, Relationships Open to Interpretation, Slavery, Slow Burn, Space Pirates, Telepathic Finn, Telepathy, The First Order Sucks, maz kanata - Freeform, of a sort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21989068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adishailan/pseuds/Adishailan
Summary: They were little things at first, small like the small stream of pebbles down a mountain before the landslide hit.He was getting better in his simulations. Not that he wasn't always good, getting consistent top marks and stilted praise from his instructors. But now he was able to dodge out the way of shots much quicker, almost too quickly, and sometimes he ducked down a good five seconds before an explosion came. No one really noticed- he'd always had good marks- and when they did, well, Eighty-seven was the first to know and could easily fake a blunder to make up for it.Or: FN-2187 teaches himself to use the force.
Relationships: Finn/Rey (Star Wars), Poe Dameron/Finn, Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey
Comments: 155
Kudos: 494
Collections: Finn Centric Recommendations





	1. Whispers in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, okay okay okay. I've been writing this since god knows when. Probably since the first film when I saw the trailer with Finn holding the lightsaber and got super excited about an ex-stormtrooper Jedi. Then I watched the film and it turned out he wasn't a Jedi. I still enjoyed the hell out of it but always had the idea of Force-sensitive Finn in my head. 
> 
> (*Warning! Incoming SPOILER for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker*)  
> 
> 
> AND THEN FORCE SENSITIVE FINN BECAME CANNON! Some other stuff I wanted didn't which is fine because I can make it happen here, but I was super stoked and decided I've sat on this fic for far too long. Hope you enjoy :D

It started with a whisper. He had been young when he first heard it. The hushed burst of words were so quiet that, had the sleeping pod bay not been entirely silent, FN-2187 never would have heard it. But he did. He heard it. And then he heard it again.

_'P-please, please don't. Please don't make me.'_

FN-2187 stared up at the plastic ceiling of his pod for a moment, brow crinkling as he tried to recognise that voice. Something about the tone of it seemed familiar to him, but he couldn't think of what it was. He didn't know the word to describe the heavy low tone of it turned to a harsh, high pitch, sharp enough to cut. But the sound of it was familiar. The feeling it gave… that felt familiar too. Twisting in the pod, he flipped onto his belly, shuffling towards the observation glass of his sleeping tube as he tried to catch sight of the one who spoke those desperate words. There was no one there. Silence encased the confined area he lay in, filling the green tinged darkness with the hushed, humming buzz of distant machinery and the quiet puffs of the air processors.

Eventually the darkness grew too heavy and FN-2187 lay back down, brow furrowing as he stretched out his limbs to fill the plastic space around him. EX-2999 had once told him to enjoy that while he could, that when he grew bigger he would hardly be able to sleep straight on his back.

"One size fits all, Eight-Seven." She had said to him with downturned lips but smiling eyes. It was a week after that, that EX-2999 was sent into reconditioning and he never saw her again. FN-2187 now always made a point of stretching out his limbs every night before succumbing to sleep. 

The next few times he heard them, those whispers, it was night again. They always came in the dark, the loudest ones waking him from his sleep, shouting out things in a foreign tongue or pleading for something that FN-2187 could never give. It was from those scratching voices that FN-2187 learned of a whole host of new words and strange sorts of thoughts. Both the names of these thoughts, these feelings, and the voices they belonged to were unknown to him but they were still clear and burning for their weight. The quietest whispers he could hardly hear, but they were nicer to him, comforting and mild rather than bitter and harsh, full of what he would later realise was fear, hate and pain. He fell asleep to the sweeter ones, to the hushed sound of them, lulling him into soft dreams.

* * *

As FN-2187 grew, those voices grew with him. They became louder and clearer, and easier to recognise for it. They sounded like the FN squadron. FN-2187 wondered whether anyone else could hear them. Certainly no one talked about it, and the one time he tried to ask one of his podmates about it, they gave him the oddest look. It was only when he heard the voices outside of the dark that he understood what they were and learned to fear them.

He had just been coming out of one of the sanitation storage units when the voice tickled through his ears.

_'This weapon needs a better noise dampener. It's impractical for stealth missions.'_

He blinked again. Looking to his right, where the scratching whisper had come from, only to be met with the empty gaze of Captain Phasma's helmet as she made her way towards him, lowering her weapon to her side.

"Yes, soldier," she clipped out in a voice so loud and so deep that FN-2187 started to believe the voice had just been his imagination. And perhaps he would have continued to think that, had the voice not whispered again.

' _FN-2187. Sanitation. Young. Good grades on his first simulation. This seems out of character... perhaps...'_

FN-2187 swallowed down the words crawling down his throat, throwing out a salute, big chested and unwavering as he felt an unusual surge of gratitude towards the mask covering the fear on his face.

"Nothing Captain. Awaiting orders Captain." he clipped out, proud of how his voice remained somewhat steady and unbreaking.

' _... Keep an eye on this one, his voice wavers...'_

"Very well. Return to your duties."

"Y-yes Captain."

FN-2187 learned two things that day. One: he needed to learn to lie, and two: the whispers were real.

* * *

For a few days after this, he tried to convince himself that he was wrong. That he was ill or tired. It seemed easier than the alternative, that he had an abnormality. Illnesses could be fixed. Like when FN-2199 started to get red marks all over her face and arms or when FN-0038 started leaking from his eyes all the time. It was reported, dealt with and never happen again. Illnesses could be fixed. Abnormalities couldn't. FN-2187 did not want to be an abnormality. The problem was, once the whispers started in earnest, they did not stop. Instead they grew louder, clearer, and they surrounded him on all sides from dawn to dusk.

 _'If FN-2003 fails in our group simulation one more time I'm reporting him for something._ '

‘ _God I hate dealing with the small ones. Bet the old clone armies didn’t have to deal with this. Lucky sods_.’

‘ _Why wouldn’t that damn blaster work?!_ ’

' _Why do we have to do eat calcium bars, what's the point?'_

' _Has Zeroes been eating enough? How I can check without them noticing_.'

FN-2187 looked up at that last one and quickly glanced across to FN-2199, who the whisper had come from, then to his right to FN-2000. She was blankly looking down at the ration packet in her hands. FN-2187 looked down at his gloved hands with a frown. He couldn't hear much from her, she wasn't really thinking about anything. That didn't mean he couldn't feel it though.

"Here Zeroes, let's swap. You like the vitamin pellets much more than the protein strips," he said, turning his lips up into a soft reflection of a smile he'd once dreamed of. Zeroes stared at him, then at the food being held out to her, then at him again. By the itching of his neck and sudden hush of thoughts around him, FN-2187 could tell the others were watching him too.

"Eighty-seven. What are you doing?" Asked FN-2119 in a quiet voice. "We're not supposed to share food. These are designed to give us all the nutrition we need, you cannot-"

"If split between more than one person, it won't make much difference," FN-2199 spoke up, halving his vitamin pellet portion and placing it on Zeroes’s tray. FN-2187 felt his soft smile widen into a toothy grin, unlike anything he or any of the soldiers around him had encountered before.

No one spoke for a moment. Then:

"…H-here, Zeroes. Have some of mine too," FN-2003 spluttered out, staring at FN-2187 as he shoved a few of his vitamin pellets towards the surprised FN-2000.

"Okay," she murmured, placing one of the little dried balls in her mouth, thoughts a little clearer now for FN-2187 to hear. He smiled at her, at his squad-mates, and one-by-one found his smile reflected back at him.

They had to be careful. All too often FN-2187 heard thoughts like 2119's, that he was showing a little to much affection towards his teammates, that storm troopers shouldn't smile; thoughts that whispered he was starting to lead the others astray. They had to be careful. Or to put it more accurately, **_he_** had to be careful.

While it was hard, FN-2187 _was_ getting better at disguising his voice, at holding himself still when necessary, at showing nothing but a blank mask. Unlike the others though, he would never become the mask. He would always sneak Zeroes her favourite food, he would always help pick up FN-2003 when he fell so often everyone started to call him Slips, and he would always smile beneath that mask whenever he could. He tried smiling without the mask sometimes; Slips and Nines liked seeing him smile most. They called him eighty-seven. They smiled when they thought about his teeth glinting white when he grinned, and of all the different ways to get him to do it again, and FN-21- no, _Eighty-Seven_ liked it.

Everything felt better for a while. Eighty-seven felt like he had friends and, for the first time since he realised what the whispers were, he was happy he was abnormal.

* * *

Time went on.

The training was getting more intense. The FN squadron were getting older now, putting on more muscle and growing stronger. They were learning about more weapons, watching and reading more educational material on battles and their enemies, and being speedily moulded into the living weapons they were meant to be. There was less and less time for talking, resting and even eating. Food was to be eaten quickly and in silence so to fit in with the new routine. Zeroes no longer hesitated over her food, she was tired and needed the energy. Nines and Slips didn't share their portions anymore anyway. Eighty-seven tried once or twice but Slips quickly caught his hand and put the food back on his tray, thinking:

' _Eighty-Seven needs to stop. Or someone will report him._ '

Eighty-Seven tried to be subtler.

' _Do I have to report him?_ ' Nines thought.

Eighty-Seven stopped sharing his food.

The once warm tide of thoughts around him no longer lulled him to sleep at night. They were almost silent now, hushed and curled in on themselves. There were some thoughts that were too dangerous to think too loudly. Those who let it reflect on their face or in their actions didn't last long. The FN squad soon learned to keep their thoughts to themselves or, better yet, to not even think them in the first place. Eighty-seven kept on thinking though. He kept on thinking and hiding those thoughts behind his mask. When it looked like he was watching the educational videos on the evil resistance he was instead listening to the superiors wondering where they got all the actors from. When he looked like he was concentrating on his weapon training, firing shot after shot into the bullseye, he was instead thinking of how to get Slips safely through the next simulation. He looked like the perfect soldier, officer corps material maybe.

His mask was good.

* * *

As his body changed and grew in strength and size, Eighty-seven felt his abnormality change too. He could still hear the thoughts of others and feel their emotions often, but he was starting to notice other things. They were little things at first, small like the small stream of pebbles down a mountain before the landslide hit.

He was getting better in his simulations. Not that he wasn't always good, getting consistent top marks and stilted praise from his instructors. But now he was able to dodge out the way of shots much quicker, almost _too_ quickly, and sometimes he ducked down a good five seconds before an explosion came. No one really noticed- he'd _always_ had good marks- and when they did, well, Eighty-seven was the first to know and could easily fake a blunder to make up for it. It wasn't just the good reflexes though. He would have been okay with it if it were just that. There were other parts to it that were harder to define, harder to understand.

Sometimes, if he stared long enough, he could feel _something_ surrounding those around him. Well perhaps feel is the wrong word as there was nothing to touch. It was more like an invisible blur, a faint hum too quiet to be heard but somehow still noticeable. It never seemed to have an impact or ever do anything. It was just _there_. After a while, he stopped thinking about it. It was on seeing FN-2119 shot through the heart after compromising the safety of the base through an error, that Eighty-seven started to understand the blur a bit more. He watched the dying storm trooper, barely listening to Captain Plasma as she spoke the words: 'example', 'lesson' and 'duty' to them. He just looked at FN-2119 as he writhed and contorted alone on the cold metal floor. He saw him gurgle out one last bloody breath, hands falling slack down to his sides. He felt the blur surrounding the man spasm and fade. He looked up and Captain Plasma was staring at him. She didn't say anything, but then again, she didn't need to.

' _One to watch.’_

Eighty-Seven thought about that blur a lot, mostly at night when he was alone in his pod, body packed tight into the confined plastic tube, unable to stretch out his legs any more but flexing out his toes regardless. He thought about the blur, how he had sensed it fade away and how everyone who lived had one. Then, slowly, he started to wonder if _he_ had one. He shifted his arms slightly, squeezing his hands into the small space above his face, staring at the shadows formed by the green glow of the airflow monitor. He squinted at his fingers, wiggling the digits one by one, over and over. The hum wasn't there. He could feel no blur. He closed his eyes with a sigh, letting his hand fall to his brow. He felt the soft upturn to it, leading into his stubbly, short cut hair, his skin dry and clean under his touch.

Feel... It was about what he could feel wasn't it? Not what he could see. Eighty-seven took in a long, deep breath and drifted his hands just above the surface of his skin, feeling the warmth permeate the small slither of air between. He slowly pulled his hands up, focusing on that warmth, searching for the other sensation. Wait... was that-? Warmth surged through his chest for half a heartbeat before it abruptly vanished. Exhaustion pulled at his mind like a riptide. His breathing grew sluggish, his hands shuddered and brushed at his skin and the feeling was lost to sleep.

The next morning, it was almost impossible to wake but wake he did, bleary-eyed and clumsy, but ready to try again. Which he did. Not that morning obviously; he had work to do. He had to inspect the drains on the new training deck and remove a blockage, then he had to go onto the training fields, breathing in the cold icy air as he dodged through snowy pine trees and scaled the many different wooden obstacles. After that it was the daily simulation training, scanning for snipers and spies then acting as them in turn. And then to the simulator bay for yet another fighting simulation.

It was only when the sweeping shots of the latest propaganda film (Eighty-seven learned that word a month before when listening to his superior officers, and found it _very_ useful) had finished that evening and he was allowed to clamber into his pod, that he let himself close his eyes and try again. He probably should have waited until everyone was asleep, till the lights went out but... he wanted to feel it. Last night, just for a moment he skimmed the surface and it felt like... it had **_felt_**. He just wanted to feel it again. But he didn't that first night, nor did he on the second or third. He almost felt it, so many times, then he'd grin, wide and toothy, and leap forwards with his mind only to have the feeling skitter away. In the end, he figured it out but not without some unlikely help.

The newest batch of storm troupers, the HJs, had arrived not a week ago. This hadn't really impacted on the FN troop that much, new soldiers never did. Each squadron was often kept separate from the younger ones until they reached a level of experience which could be useful for training purposes. But, with so many storm troupers on base, it was impossible to completely avoid encounters. Such as the encounter Eighty-seven had with HJ-1807 and HJ-1207 or, as they liked to think of themselves, the Sevs.

"It's not gonna work, Sev," came the voice of the taller one, tilting her helmet to the side as she holstered her weapon.

"Of course it will, Sev. We have smoke bombs right? How do you think they get the smoke in there?"

Eighty-seven slowed his stride, almost tripping over an ice encrusted knoll of grass as he looked over the training field to see the two cadets huddled over a smoking weapon.

They were so small... the tallest one would just about reach the centre of Eighty-seven's chest if they stood on tiptoes. The smaller one would barely reach his hips. Something about this fact made him pause, watching them with a strange feeling in his chest as the littlest one tried to catch smoke with clumsy, gloved hands. Their blur was a bit larger than everyone else's, a bit easier to feel...

"Your doing it wrong. Your fingers are too wide-spread, so the smoke escapes," the tall one explained, taking their companion's hands and moulding them into cups. "If you go too fast, if you squeeze it, the smoke will escape but if you just take a little bit and hold it gently... look."

Eighty-seven suddenly wanted to look too, to get closer and see that whip of smoke held in those small hands. He _needed_ to. He took a step forward, and another, and-

"What are you doing soldiers?"

Eighty-seven jumped and saluted as one of the captains approached, but it wasn't him the captain was speaking to.

"This is improper use of weaponry runt," the captain snarled, wrenching the broken weapon out of the smaller Sev's hands and backhanding them.

There was a moment, _just a moment,_ when Eighty-seven wanted to march forward and return that strike a hundred times over. Then the moment ended, leaving him cold. He had wanted to harm a superior. He wanted to _hurt_ someone. He had never wanted that before... He turned on his heal and left, fighting down the queasy roll to his stomach and trying his best to ignore the sound of another ringing slap.

* * *

That night he thought about those two, he thought about that sound he heard and then he thought of the smoke. His hands drifted up across his frame, circling his chest as he thought. You cannot grab at smoke. You cannot cage it and expect it not to escape... but perhaps it can be held for a moment, and perhaps a moment is all that is needed. Eighty-seven didn't move his hands or close his eyes. He simply thought about this and felt. Slowly, _achingly_ slowly, the feeling came. It was deep and strange and warm. It felt like… like he was wearing something worn and comfortable, but inside his skin. It was familiar like the beat of his heart was familiar but at the same time terrifyingly new.

It felt like peace.

His hands fell to his sides, his eyes staring at nothing and his breathing coming out slow and steady. The feeling faded and Eighty-seven realised water was running down his face. He wiped at it and held his hands up before him in the green tinged gloom, smiling at the soft glisten of tears on his fingertips.

* * *

Most of his nights after that were spent navigating around that strangely addictive sensation. It was hard and exhausting but his face would ache with his smile every time he succeeded. Slowly, most of his nights turned to all of his nights until, to Eighty-seven, the feeling of peace was as familiar as his own voice and almost as easy to achieve as breathing.

Soon, it only took him a few moments of focus to feel that strange calmness. It was incredibly useful whenever Captain Plasma gave him a spot check. His voice came out steady and inflectionless, just the way she wanted, while his mind calmly whirled with different ideas on how to keep the ruse going.

Sometimes, when he felt out his blur before going to sleep, he heard new, peculiar whispers. Quieter whispers, with echoes of images dancing behind his eyes. They were of strange things, different things. A child sat in a ship on a sea of gold, staring up at the sky with tears drying on her cheeks. A young man, face faint and faded, speaking of far off places and distant lands, smiling toothily at him before falling away. A grinning teenager with chains on their wrists, a short, wrinkled woman with a blaster by her side and poison on her lips, a forgotten man shouting out at the stars and beating down on the earth. So many people, some happy, some sad, laughing and crying in equal measure. Eighty-Seven knew now not to dismiss these images like he had first done with the voices. He had to figure them out, to learn from them, like he had learned from the thoughts of those around him.

There was one image in particular that kept coming back to him, one that worried him. A man in a mask, dressed all in black, standing before Eighty-seven, with one hand contracting and shaking and the other wrapped tightly round a strange, metal rod.

"-rce-" "-how-" "-ll join u-" "-asse-" "-rain y-"

And Eighty-Seven would jolt out of those strange visions with a gasp, sweat pouring off his face and body shaking. He wanted desperately to play off the dream-like-visions as just, well, dreams... but, by the storm of feelings stirring within him, he knew not to. They were a warning, just like the voices were a warning when he performed too well in drills or when Captain Plasma took too much notice of him.

Something bad was coming. He needed to be ready.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wow. I can't believe the reaction to this fic. Thank you so much for all the kudos and comments! I was really surprised by the quick response (sorry my updates on this won't be quite so quick- have had to do some major re-working of the plot after I wrote myself into a dead end and had to backtrack a depressingly long way)  
> I hope you guys like this chapter too! :)

* * *

Gunfire blasted and explosions shattered the air and Eighty-Seven kept his cool, ducking down under a slab of rock for cover and yanking Slips out of the line of fire.

"Push forward the advance! Remember our mission: detonate the repeating blaster!" Nines shouted out, ducking down behind another boulder for a moment before jumping out and ploughing on. Eighty-Seven nodded quickly and jumped up, circling behind the rock and rushing to follow. He scrambled up the slope and made for the forest for cover only to stop when he realised Slips had fallen back, out of sight.

"Slips?" he breathed, spinning in place as he searched. "Slips? C'mon man, don't _do_ this to me."

 _There_! He stopped spinning, spotting Slips still stuck behind that boulder, panting heavily and pinned down by heavy fire.

"What's wrong?" Asked Zeros, halting in her charge when she saw Eighty-Seven's frantic hand movements.

"Sli -uh- _FN-2003_ has fallen behind. We need to recover him."

' _This is a problem. He is compromising the mission.'_

"We must go back and get him," Eighty-Seven urged her again.

"What's happening?" Asked Nines, dropping back beside them both. "We need to keep going."

"FN-2187 wants to go back for FN-2003."

' _This is a problem. He is compromising the mission,_ ' thought Nines, gazing dispassionately at Eighty-Seven.

"We cannot compromise the mission. We will keep going or we will be taken," Nines commanded.

"No."

Zeros and Nines were silent, simply staring at Eighty-Seven as he turned to look from one to another. In the distance, the humming bursts of phaser fire sounded, and the heavy stamp of boots echoed.

"...We have a _mission_ ," stressed Zeros.

Eighty-Seven shook his head disbelievingly. They couldn't just leave Slips behind. They wouldn't. He just had to convince them, to make them think and realise this truth. He took a deep breath and pictured that sense of peace in his mind, trying to keep his temper.

"We can’t leave one of our own behind when we can save them. We _won’t_."

His friends froze for a moment, simply staring at him. Then, as one, their backs straightened and they nodded.

"Rodger," said Zeros in a toneless voice.

"R-Rodger," said Nines in a slightly bewildered one.

"Oh. Uh. Okay then?" Said FN-2187 confused at how quick they were to agree before shaking his head and refocusing. "Right, I have a plan. Both of you are going to go in different directions and split the Republic's attention. FN-2000 you go right along the outcrop of boulders. Ni- _FN-2199_ you go left into the tree line. Stay under cover and use your blasters only to draw in attention and keep the enemy at a distance. I'll go straight in and get FN-2003 then we'll use your distraction to take out the repeating blaster."

There were no arguments this time, just a hint of hesitation in Nine's movements as he nodded and left.

 _No time to think about that_ , Eighty-Seven told himself as he slipped down the slope, ducking down several times and shooting at the enemy. None of his shots missed as he made his way to Slips, wrenching his friend up by the plastic scruff of his suit. There was no time to talk as he yanked his friend forwards and pushed him into running alongside him, blaster ready and trained to strike any who remained. Not many did though. There was a clear run, all the way to the republic bunker. Eighty-seven grinned, pulling out a grenade from his pack and priming it.

"Watch my back, Slips," he threw over his shoulder, moving forward at a run, ducking and dodging his way through the cover of trees towards the bunker. He could hear the distant sound of blasters, coming from both his right and left, but there was no time to process what those sounds meant as he hurled the grenade into the mouth of the base, just below the blaster cannon, and ran back.

The explosion that rocked the ground should have sent him sprawling but for his sudden decision to jump a split second earlier. Eighty-Seven landed on the floor with a metallic clang, blinking as the rocky terrain buzzed and glitched out of existence.

"Mission achieved," a digitalised voice echoed through the metallic hall.

Eighty-Seven looked around, smiling beneath his mask as he noticed his friends standing up from their crouched positions and falling in line. A heavy step sounded through the hall, Eighty-Seven looked forward, his smile dropping off his face like it was never there. He stood up, carefully holding himself still as Captain Plasma entered his range of vision. Sweat itched down Eighty-Seven's brow but he made no move to relieve the irritating feeling, not that he could with his mask in the way. Instead he focused his mind inwards, pulled in a deep breath and willed himself calm.

"...You have achieved your mission," Captain Phasma eventually stated, eyeing up Eighty-Seven's firm and calm stance.

 _Officer material?_ She mused.

Eighty-Seven registered that thought and almost felt his sense of calm waver. He had heard people muse on this before but never _her_. Never anyone who could actually make it happen. 

_No,_ _not now, later. Think about that later._

"FN-2187. Your kill rate was the highest of the class and you came up with a plan on the spot that none of your team thought of." She didn't tell him he had done well. She didn't even think it. She was purely stating facts.

"The rest of you will be repeating this mission tomorrow. You are required to be up to standard for the upcoming inspection. Return to your duties. FN-2187 with me."

_Calmness, peace, just focus, **focus**. _

"This isn't the first time you have supported FN-2003 through a simulation. Why is this.” She clipped out, intonation flat and hardly recognisable as a question. Nevertheless, Eighty-Seven answered it as one:

"A squadron must work together to achieve its goal," he spoke, forcing his fingers to keep still and his back to stay straight. "That is why we work as a team; we are stronger together."

"And a team is only as strong as its weakest link, soldier. FN-2003 _is_ the weak link. You are not improving the dynamics of your squad, FN-2187, neither are you fixing a problem. You are merely allowing it to _persist_."

Eighty-Seven's breath rattled in his chest as he fought to keep his shaking hands from forming into steady fists.

"FN-2003 must stand or fall on his own. If he stands, the Order is strengthened. If he falls, the Order is spared his weakness. You will stop supporting FN-2003, soldier."

There was a silence.

"Confirm FN-2187, you will no longer be supporting FN-2003."

Eighty-Seven did not speak.

"I said conf-"

"Confirmed captain, I will stop supporting FN-2003."

* * *

_Eighty-Seven did not stop supporting Slips_. He would never stop helping a friend, but he had heard what Captain Plasma had thought about his hesitation. He told himself that he simply had to be more careful.

He couldn't ask the others to go back for Slips, he couldn't even go back himself, he just had to make sure he didn't _need_ to. Nights were no longer _just_ spent practicing feeling his blur. He spent hour after hour, when he should have slept, thinking up new tricks and manoeuvres to best take down the holograms before they could get a shot at his friend. When they were to finally be deployed, they wouldn't have the luxury of low wattage blasters. He had to get better.

Eighty-Seven watched other troopers, the ones who had come back from their missions with little to no injury and studied their movements. He found the last remaining members of the legendary B and C squadrons, who had lost limbs and blood and companions but were _still_ going, and he studied their minds. His movements gradually became more precise, his shots more planned out. He started to subtly direct his fellow stormtroopers into shooting like him, always making sure that Slips was following his lead. Eighty-Seven did not stop to help his friend anymore. He didn't need to.

* * *

The whisper visions were getting worse. They were a nightly event now. It was almost at the point where Eighty-Seven wanted to stop his explorations of the blur but he didn't. A strange form of morbid curiosity ate at him; he had to know what is was all about. Every time the vision was slightly different, be it different words spoken, different actions taken or even being in a completely different place. He saw himself in the large metal hall of the training grounds, shaking as the figure swooped in, feet pounding on the hard, echoing floor as the figure reached out a hand to freeze him in place. He saw himself in black, flowing robes, with yellow rimmed eyes and gaunt cheeks, backing into a corner of a ship hanger, someone else’s hand hovering above his throat, squeezing him but not choking him, a _warning_. Then he saw himself out on the training grounds, surrounded by ice and trees as he faced the figure, a broken, stuttering red sword in the man's hands as he turned to face him. And Eighty-Seven broke away from these visions, sweat heavy on his brow and heart fighting its way out of his chest.

It was on seeing the glowing sword, that he finally started to suspect who this person was. Who hadn't heard of the Jedi, of their famous sabres or of _Kylo Ren_? Kylo Ren, who was often on missions across the universe to discover and take down the Resistance pockets. Kylo Ren, the Jedi Killer. Kylo Ren, the Jedi Killer, who was coming back to the star destroyer in one month’s time to select a new squadron. Eighty-Seven stared up at the plastic ceiling of his sleeping pod, heart throbbing dully in his mouth. Something bad would happen when Kylo Ren came. It felt... _inevitable_.

He needed to leave. The thought was foreign to him at first. Leave the first order? How? _Really, how?_ The only way he had seen people leave was through a blaster and the cremation burner.

 _But what if there was a way?_ He would think as he ran through the forests, unconsciously jumping over traps and dodging projectiles.

 _Then how could no one else have taken it?_ He would argue back at himself as he fired round after round into the resistance cut-outs at the firing range.

 _Perhaps no one has really thought to leave before now. I've definitely never heard anyone think like this before._ He mused as he scooped out the blockage from an officer's drains, only for all thoughts to quickly drop away as he realised the blockage was alive and covered in tentacles.

After dropping the slimy dianoga off into a nearby lake and going back to his unit to wash off all the ink (and after wondering how those stupid things kept getting into the pipes), Eighty-Seven suddenly realised something.

_What about his friends?_

Eighty-Seven blinked, staring as Slips pulled his vizor off and cleaned himself in the stall next to him. He clearly wasn't really thinking about much, but he nodded at Eighty-Seven when he caught him staring. No, Eighty-Seven wasn't going to just leave them. He _couldn’t_. He... he just had to think of something else.

* * *

It was their first real deployment and, for the first time in a long time, Eighty-Seven could feel a sense of nervousness creeping over his friends. It was small and subtle, hardly a feeling at all, but Eighty-Seven took comfort in the fact that his squad were nervous in that moment as well. The ship shuddered under them briefly, twisting and turning to avoid the artificial asteroid field. Eighty-Seven closed his eyes, listening to the distant sounds of rocks pelting at the ship. Captain Plasma hadn't told the squadron what this place was called but that didn't matter to Eighty-Seven. He listened to the officers and wondered who came up with the name 'Pressy's Tumble' for a destroyed moon. Perhaps there was a story behind it, but if there was, the officers didn’t know it. Captain Plasma hadn't sent them in with nothing though. All around Eighty-Seven, he could hear his friends and teammates thinking over the details of the mission.

'- _duty-'_

_'-to restore order-'_

_'-Republic agents infiltration-'_

_'-our duty-'_

_'-mining operations compromised-'_

_‘-dissent among the miners-'_

_'- do our duty-'_

Eighty-Seven blinked and shook his head, trying to focus on something else, but the thoughts kept tearing at the fringes of his mind. He breathed a sigh of relief when the ship finally shuddered and docked onto the Mining Operations base, only for his sigh to cut short into a juddering gasp as the doors open and he saw what was beyond.

Pain, anger, chaos. Absolute chaos. Plasma weapons discharged like hissing fireworks, filling the vast cavern before them with light and screams. Fires roared out across the metal pathways leaving only rubble, bodies and the dark afterimages of explosions behind, and Eighty-Seven was marching right into the middle of it!

_Calm, keep calm, keep- WHAT THE HELL?!_

He stared, eyes screaming-wide beneath his vizor, as the living blurs of hundreds of people bloomed and burst around him, howling out thoughts as loud as the battle around them.

'- _eat fucking blaster you bastar_ -'

'-Never Again! You'll Never-'

'- **od i'm gonna die here! Why did we think we could do this? Oh go** _-_ '

'-why can't they just let us live free? Why _-'_

'- ** _DIE! YOU MONSTERS! DIE!-_** '

He felt frozen, still, unmoving but for the fact that his feet were pounding down one of the many metal platforms crisscrossing across the dark pit below, along with the rest of his squadron, his body seemingly working on autopilot. There was so much. He _felt_ so much. So many people. Their voices were in his head and he couldn't get rid of them, their vibrant and terrible feelings creating a thrumming ache that ripped through his mind. He stared at them, wide-eyed, all piled up behind overturned mining carts and heavy duty equipment. Their blurs were stuttering like the flare of a star, connecting like constellations, a galaxy of life, each of them different and beautifully terrifying...

**'There's more of them! fuck! fuck!'**

A blaster started firing, Slips almost fell as a chunk of rock went flying into his helmet, creating a large dent. Eighty-Seven grabbed him and hauled him behind a slab of broken metal sheeting.

"DOWN!" Bellowed Eighty-Seven. He had hardly any time to do anything but react as a whole barrage of shots swept down upon his squadron. He started shooting up his own weapon at the ground around the miners to create enough of a threat to push the attackers back under cover.

"MOVE! MOVE!" He ordered the stormtroopers, shoving at his friends' backs to push them out of range in time before the rebels started to attack again in greater numbers. It didn't take long for the firing to start anew but by that time he had moved everyone out of range. Well, as out of range as he could get them.

A wretched, desperate thought flashed to the forefront of the chaotic thrum in Eighty-Seven's mind and suddenly he was moving, wrenching up a loose piece of wreckage out of the debris around him (that by rights should have been too heavy for him to even lift) and hurling it with all his might in the direction of that horrifying thought. The blast created as the grenade hit the torn-up sheet of metal, threw Eighty-Seven back to the ground, his head slamming into the rocky surface. The world grew bright and ringing, causing him to squint and gasp as he tried to regain his bearings.

Without Eighty-Seven to take command, the stormtroopers scattered, their blasters flaring and creating streaks of fiery red and pulsing, bruised purple in Eighty-Seven's unfocused eyes. He tried to push himself up, away from those deafening sounds and painful light but quickly fell again as the ground trembled beneath his feet. Or were his feet trembling upon the ground? The sounds around him suddenly seemed to increase in volume, as did the sounds inside his head.

'- ** _NO! No no no no NO!-_** '

- _ck they're all here!-_

'- **live a slave or die free. Well, suppose we never had much choice _-_** _'_

'-that's... too many-'

‘ _They can’t! I don’t want to-_ ’

'- **Where can we run? _Where can we run?!_** _-_ '

'o h g o d. ohgodohgodohgodohgod-'

Eighty-Seven brought his hands up to his head, teeth gritted as the screams rang out and pleas hounded him from every angle. Just above that head-splitting cacophony, came a new sound. A whirling, whining, whistling sound of the heavy artillery jets. Hope flooded Eighty-Seven. The First Order must have decided the situation had got out of hand to send the jets as well. Surely the miners would stop fighting now! His smile quickly faded away though. He could hear the thoughts of those around him, feel the echoes of the rebels emotions. He was the only one that felt this hope. His squad! Where was his squadron?! He forced his eyes open and lumbered to his feet, ignoring the prickling black spots creeping into his vision and ignoring the way his head pounded and throbbed. He had to find where his friends went, he had to- had to-

Not ten feet away from Eighty-Seven, a large group of stormtroopers stood, guns ready and aimed on the group of rebels being led out from behind the barricade. He stood there, unmoving as he stared at the squadron. His eyes roamed over the dent in one of their helmets, _Slips_ , the slender gloved hand of another, _Zeros_ , and the towering height of one at the front, _Nines_.

…It was his squad.

Hesitantly, Eighty-Seven made his way over to them, closer and closer until he stood in their ranks once more, just behind Zeros and next to Slips. They were silent around him. Completely silent. Fresh sweat dripped down his cheeks, causing the mask to fog slightly and his vision to blur. There was a sound of clanking steps and the familiar voice of Captain Plasma giving out orders. Around him, all of the storm- all of his friends saluted with one hand, blasters still trained steadily on the rebels. Eighty-Seven's movements were an echo to theirs, slow and uncoordinated as he hurriedly raised his blaster into the correct position. Luckily no one was looking his way as he stood there, frame ridged and all sense of calm a thousand miles away. It was silent around him. He couldn't hear his friends. _Why couldn't he hear his friends?_ It was by no means entirely silent in Eighty-Seven's head though. The thoughts of the rebels were ringing through it as clear as a foghorn, making him wince with their sheer volume. He stared at them, the men and women who kneeled on the rubble strewn ground, hands behind their heads and a range of emotions on their faces. One woman had tears streaming down her face but a smile on her cracked lips. A boy glared out at them with bloodied eyes but couldn't hide the shivers racking down his frame. An old man stared right at him, unmoving and unblinking as he simply awaited his fate. Eighty-Seven could feel all their blurs, loud and huge and somehow clean feeling, like fresh air flowing into a stale room.

"FN-2187, 2092, 2003, 2411, 1991 and 1340, you will accompany me. In line."

Eighty-Seven was slightly slower than the others as he followed, his pace uneven and steps stiff, but no one noticed. He followed on, past rebel after rebel, listening to their despair drenched thoughts, trying not to flinch at the sheer volume or the fear that underpinned each and every one of them.

**‘They’re- they’re gonna kill us!’**

_‘Ishouldn’thavejoined.Ishouldn’thavejoinedIshouldn’thavejoined.’_

‘What’s going to happen now?’

_‘The negotiators will save us. They’ll explain...’_

_‘_ We should have listened to them. Waited. What’s-’

**_‘They can't kill all of us. Who's gonna mine this place if they do?’_ **

_‘…We're going to die.’_

The sounds of their thoughts grew distant, into a buzz of background static, as they entered a crude, metal plated building, backed up into a colossal stony wall, that loomed over a sea of rusted diggers and corroded drills.

The metal doors slammed shut behind them. Eighty- Seven was the only stormtrooper who turned at the noise as the other simply moved on. No one noticed him flag behind, not even Captain Plasma who was far too wrapped up in her own self-satisfied thoughts and numerous plans to pay him any heed. What these plans were, Eighty-Seven couldn’t quite make out. His mind was still ringing with screams and pleas and the unceasing buzz of the hundreds of lives around him, all fearing their end. Realising he was falling behind in his distraction, Eighty-Seven jolted forwards and hurried to re-join his squad, the metal grid under his feet groaning with his pounding steps. He paid it hardly any mind, instead uneasily taking in Slip’s steady stance as they walked through the barely lit corridors.

Eighty- Seven started to hear voices again, up ahead. They were quiet and they were worried but the fact that he could hear something other than the pounding of boots on metal, Phasma’s sick satisfaction and his own ragged breathing, almost had him sighing with relief. The corroded metal door ahead of them slowly slid open and Eighty- Seven followed his squad as they formed a line in the front of the spartan meeting room, blasters held tight to their chests. A small group of men and women were gathered before a long wooden table, clothes neat but worn, and faces shiny with sweat.

“A-ah! Ca-Captain Phasma. We’re d-dreadfully sorry for the miner’s actions. We told them n-not to, well. Uh. Y- you’ve come to d-di-discuss the treaty with us?” One of the men stuttered out, walking forward with arms outstretched and hands unconsciously facing palm out. Eighty-Seven heard the whisper of thoughts echo through the room, quiet and hushed, as if the people who thought them were trying to squash them down.

_~~‘They won’t negotiate with us.’~~ _

_‘We can strike a bargain.’_

_~~ ‘They’ll kill us.’ ~~ _

**_‘They won’t hurt us. They need to reach a conclusion to this.’_ **

_~~‘They need an example to be made for the miners.’~~ _

_ ‘We can talk them round.’ _

**_~~‘I’m going to die.’~~ _ **

“Squadron take position,” called Captain Plasma, voice clipped and emotionless.

There was a sound of five weapons being charged and held up in unison and of one scrabbling to join in.

“S- surely we c-c-can come to an a-arrangement,” the man squeaked out, looking from faceless mask to faceless mask, looking for some hint of mercy. There was none to be seen.

“Take aim.”

_‘This is how I die?’_

_ ‘I don’t want to go like this.’ _

‘We failed them.’

**‘There must be something I can do. Think damnit! This _can’t_ be it!’**

_‘No! No! Please... no.’_

Eighty- Seven’s weapon lowered.

"Squadron! Open fire!"

_‘NO!’_

Eighty- Seven never knew who screamed out that last thought but he would always remember it. Like he would always remember the unending volley of red shots, the men and women succumbing to the fire, some bodies falling listlessly onto the ground, some not. The image was seared into his mind of those desperate few who survived the first volley as they clung onto life even as their blood clung onto the walls. And how he would _never_ forget seeing his friend, Slips, the man who had once helped him sneak food to Zeroes, who had laughed and grinned like a loon as he and Eighty-Seven play fought in the training fields as children, moving in front of him and blowing out a begging man’s skull without a seconds hesitation. Silence rang out. Complete silence. Broken only by the distant sounds of the mining drills starting up once more. An acidic taste crawled up Eighty-Seven throat as he stared with wide eyes and heaving breaths at the bloodied room. His mask filter failed to block out the taste of iron in the air and Eighty-Seven couldn’t help but choke on it. The stormtroopers turned and left the room, marching as one. Eighty-Seven didn’t move. Phasma was staring at him. He could feel it.

* * *

Eighty-Seven watched the rest of his squad pull apart and clean their weapons by their ship. Around them, weapons were being recovered, rubble cleared and bodies piled up, ready for disposal. The stormtroopers continued to follow orders, not even glancing up from their weaponry as the occasional shot rang out, shattering the silence only for it to resume once more, heavy and cloying.

This was going to happen again, wasn’t it? If Eighty-Seven stayed in the First Order, this was all going to happen again and next time he wouldn’t get away with not firing his weapon. Next time Phasma wouldn’t stop at a warning. You only ever get one. And that’s if you’re lucky. Eighty-Seven had to go. He had no more arguments against this left, no justifications, just… nothing. He had to go _now_. He attached his weapon to his hip and, forcing his gaze away from the stormtroopers around him, turned towards the docking platform. His eyes scanned over the numerous ships there until his gaze settled on the dusty blue hull of a T-70 X-Wing. He started to move and got as far as three metres before a hand pulled him back.

“Where are you going?” Asked the stormtrooper. There was a dent in their helmet.

Eighty-seven didn’t say anything. He just stared at that dent, then down at the weapon held tightly at- at the stormtrooper’s side. It took a moment for the calm to wash over him and for his voice to come out steady as he spoke.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

The stormtrooper let go of his shoulder and straightened up.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he confirmed, voice inflectionless.

And this time Eighty-Seven understood. This time he felt the subtle change in the blur around him and heard the stormtrooper’s thoughts echo Eighty-Seven’s voice. 

“… I’m right beside you, still repairing my weapons. You- you don’t need to check on me.”

“I don’t need to check on you,” the stormtrooper repeated with a nod. And with that, he turned, joining the others to continue the weapon maintenance, not looking back once. Eighty- Seven stared after him for a moment, unconsciously rubbing at his shoulder, before he turned and slowly walked away from the only life he'd ever known.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this has been delayed a bit more than intended. I'll give you three guesses why.  
> Hope this fic cheers people up, especially if you're in need of a lot of positivity. I'm hoping to get a few more fics out now that things have calmed down a bit for me and do a lot more for this fic (if said state of calmness continues)  
> So yeah, watch this space ;)

* * *

Flying an X-Wing was much harder than Eighty-Seven had thought it would be. Truth be told, he hadn’t given it much thought beyond get in, turn the engine on and get out. It turned out to be a bit more complex than that.

As soon as the bay door shut behind him, it became really obvious why no one had been using this ship. X-Wing starfighters were the ship of choice of the old Resistance and New Republic. How one of them had ended up in a mining colony under the First Order, Eighty-Seven had no clue but it was obvious that its fighting days were over. A cracked navigation screen was surrounded by dust drenched buttons and rusting metal, the faux leather control seat was split with the internal metal skeleton jutting out in numerous places, and the entire cockpit was coated in broken rock and sand. Just visible through the window, the four KX12 laser cannons, which should have been firmly attached to the base ports, were not there. Instead vice-like, metallic appendages jutted out of the ship’s hull, ready to haul mining materials and slow down any attempt to use lightspeed. 

Eighty-Seven considered all this for a moment before his head fell forward and he let out a long, strained sigh. It couldn’t just be easy, could it? For once he couldn’t just get what he wanted without something to trip him up. Good thing he was in maintenance. Surely the complex internal wiring of an unfamiliar spaceship was _just_ like the Starkiller’s plumbing system. Eighty-Seven sighed again and set to work. Perhaps he’d get lucky and find a manual.

He didn’t find a manual. He did however find that the rust and dust hadn’t reached _too_ much of the internal wiring and that, once he detached all the patch-job alterations to the frame, it was light enough to have some lift. The work was hard and complicated though. There were many fiddly wires that he had to reconnect and there a _lot_ of cleaning to do. But that wasn’t the hardest part. No, the hardest part was doing all this while surrounded by the First Order. It took a concentrated effort to focus both on the mechanics of the busted-up X-Wing and projecting a feeling of ‘not here, pay no attention to the stormtrooper scrambling all over the ship.’

By the time two hours had passed, Eighty-Seven was both physically and mentally exhausted, covered in a thick layer of sweat and struggling to keep his breathing steady. He couldn’t afford to take a break though. He was _so_ close. The remaining miners were starting to stare. Some of them seemed somehow immune to Eighty-Seven’s projections and were growing steadily more suspicious of his actions. Soon, one would make an attempt at ingratiating themselves to the First Order and report him. Eighty-Seven needed to get a move on.

He started up the engine. It didn’t work. He tried again, this time making sure that the fuel lines were definitely connected and the numerous spark plugs were connected. It didn’t work. He glared and gave it a kick. It worked.

* * *

The problem with flying a busted X-Wing out of a First Order Colony was not, in fact, _escaping_ from the First Order. All Eighty-Seven had to do on that front was pose as a sentry guarding the edge of Pressy’s Tumble from any Resistance infiltrators, giving one of the codes he had heard from his superior Officers’ minds. Then, once he’d managed to _somewhat_ figure out the steering and had prayed to whatever higher powers there were that the ship wouldn’t spring a leak, he shakily manoeuvred the x-wing up out of the docking bay and into the black expanse of space, the thoughts and blurs of the miners fading away behind him with every second until nothing could be heard. Eighty-Seven was not a pilot. Not in any sense of the word. His steering was shaky, there was a scrape down the side of the ship from when he left the air lock and several warning lights he didn’t understand had turned on and started to flash. He still managed to draw the ship to a stop though as he neared the edge of Pressy’s Tumble.

It was only as the shaking rumble around him faded into a soft hum and the engines started to cool again that he let himself look up and just take in the sight laid out before him. He stared at the stars, the countless mass of little white dots and the nothingness between them, spreading further than the eye could see. He couldn’t feel it. The unknown was spread out before him as the First Order loomed from behind. He looked out at it all, his body perfectly still, the soft rise and fall of his chest the only movement he made for many minutes. Then his breath hitched, his eyes closed and he started to laugh. It wasn’t a happy laugh. It burst out of him in little gasps. But it was either laughter or tears and Eighty-Seven knew if he started crying, he wouldn’t stop.

It took him a while to calm down enough to focus on the next part. The part that was the hardest bit of it all. This was the point at which everything: the stress, the blood, the adrenaline, all faded away, leaving him only with one question in his mind. What now? And there lay the problem. He could still turn back. He could still turn the ship around and try his best to land it without crashing into a wall then sneak back into the ranks of the RK unit and just carry on with the only life he had ever known. No one would ever realise. It would be easy… well, it would be easier than _this_ at least.

Eighty-Seven bowed his head over the controls, taking in a shaky, dust-filled breath. The lights of the console bled through his closed eyes. The soft humming of the engine and faint rattling of broken machinery was all there was to be heard. No voices to listen too. No blurs to feel. Everything was quiet.

…He opened his eyes and stared out into the inky blackness of space, at the stars and the distance specs of planets, all bright, all indistinguishable, filling up his vision with both light and dark.

Eighty-Seven engaged the hyperdrive.

* * *

The first planet he arrived on he didn’t know the name of. It was covered in pink, iridescent crystals and didn’t seem to have a breathable atmosphere. This was a shame as Eighty-Seven was pretty damn sure the hyper-jump has knocked something loose and the cock-pit windows were a second away from popping off. He wasn’t entirely sure why they hadn’t yet, the glass was practically straining at the seams. Perhaps it was luck, or his incessant internal pleading for the glass to hold, or maybe it was the duct tape. It was probably the duct tape. Eighty-Seven wasn’t being stingy with it. He could hardly see out of the glass by the time he was done. It was a shame that; NaJedha was a truly beautiful planet, and the first Eighty-Seven had ever visited.

* * *

The second planet Eighty-Seven arrived at was on fire. Or, well, mostly on fire. At this point so was his ship so he had very little choice but to crash-land the X-Wing down on one of the floating ship docks hovering above the seas of hot molten rock. Again, Eighty-Seven didn’t stay long. This time not because of a lack of oxygen but because of the huge gathering of furious androids that swarmed him the second the fire was put out.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” He yelled, raising his hands and doing his best to kick off the R2 unit holding a taser and duck under the long swinging arms of the KX- security droid.

Eighty-Seven hadn’t had much experience with droids. The ones back on the Starkiller were often very basic with no room in their programming for anything beyond the simplest of protocols, and certainly no personalities or free will. Obviously, this was not the case for all droids. While Eighty-Seven wasn’t getting _thoughts_ from them exactly, it was clear that they had blurs. Some larger, some barely noticeable, but all there and all _angry_. Apparently, keeping on the Stormtrooper gear has been a big mistake. It was a mistake that he made sure not to repeat as he made his getaway in his still smouldering X-Wing. The helmet wouldn’t be any use if the ship blew up anyway. It didn’t even filter out smoke: he had no chance against the vacuum of space. No point keeping on the rest of it either then. And the plastic-like armour would only make his corpse look slightly more visible if some unfortunate soul managed to stumble across him.

Eighty-Seven was pretty sure at this point that the only thing standing between him and death right now was the duck tape. Or possibly his use of his calm. Black spots were hovering in the corners of his eyes now as he forced himself to keep going, to keep thinking of the ship as whole and together and _please not about to blow up_.

The ship blew up about twenty seconds after crash-landing on the third planet. Eighty-Seven, who has been legging it from the damn thing about five seconds after landing, was only _mildly_ charred… Well, at least he wouldn’t have trouble setting up a campfire tonight. And with that, Eighty-Seven laughed and collapsed into a dead faint.

* * *

Waking up was slow going the next morning. Eighty-Seven’s sleeping pod felt strangely soft and fantastically spacious. He didn’t need to tuck his knees in or sleep on his side to fit his shoulders. He spread out his legs, stretched out his arms and smiled. Then his back suddenly flared with a dry, crackling pain and Eighty-Seven remembered. He didn’t jolt up at the memory. He didn’t wince or hiss or react in any visible way. He just continued to lie there, breathing in the clean air and just enjoying the moment. He was free, covered in first degree burns, but free. Oh, and also thirsty, hungry and on an unknown planet without any means of escape should the natives prove hostile _again_.

Eighty-Seven stopped enjoying the moment.

With a hissing wince, he pulled himself up into a slouched seated position and took in his surroundings. _Huh_. They were green. Eighty-Seven rubbed at the ashy film coating his eyes and looked again. Trees towered over him, leaves fresh and new, lit up to a bright shade of glowing green by the sunlight filtering down through the thick canopy. Bird song filled the air, rising high and sweet with only the odd flash of feathered wing to be seen. Eighty-Seven had seen images like this before, back on the Star Killer, back in his simulation training. But to be there, to feel the crackle of leaves beneath him, to breath in clean, fresh air and to feel the faint humming blur of the grass growing, their roots weaving through the earth, the frantic heartbeats of the birds flittering from tree to tree. It was hard to put into words but… it, everything around him, felt like life.

Eighty-Seven closed his eyes, took a deep steadying breath, and pushed the overwhelming feeling of heartbreaking contentment down. Later, once he’d found food and water and somewhere to stay, he’d think about it all then. Not now. Not yet. He opened his eyes and got moving.

It took over three hours for him to find the castle. Approximately, one of those hours was spent wallowing in the first clean looking pool of water he could find, greedily gulping down the liquid while wincing at the inflamed crackle of his charred back. It was probably going to scar but the blisters weren’t _too_ bad. The rest of his journey had consisted of wading through marshy bogs, clambering over fallen trees and debating whether it was worth the risk of eating the little black berries he saw everywhere. The fact that they were untouched by any of the local animals was telling though. He kept going.

It was about two hours after he first awoke, that Eighty-Seven started hearing the whispers. They started quietly, mistaken for birdsong at first, but steadily grew louder and louder as he made his way forward. Their thoughts were difficult to understand, all lapping over each other, rushed and garbled in their number. With every step he took, every corner of the forest he rounded and every fallen tree he clambered over, he expected to see a huge crowd of people. They were so loud now, almost deafening (if a mind _could_ be deafened) but he still saw no sign of them. Eighty-Seven started to wonder if he had gone mad. But then the tip of a stone spire started to jut out over the canopy of the forest and he knew he was going the right way.

About half a mile away from the castle, Eighty-Seven stopped, clutched his head and fell to his knees.

‘- _ake a dea_ -‘

‘- **piece of a** -‘

‘- ** _at bitch! Sh_** -‘ ‘-ING DARE YOU! I’LL-’

‘- _at a cutie. Wonder if-_ ’ ‘-ng tryna swindl-‘ _‘-heating scumb-‘_ ‘ ** _starving! Whe_** -‘ ‘HEY!’ ‘- _Gonna_ -‘ ‘ _why I_ -‘ ‘- **oin** -‘ ‘-no-‘ ‘- **a** -‘ ‘- _g_ -‘

It hurt. After the day (days?) he had, his mind felt raw and open. The whispers weren’t whispering any more. They were shouting, screaming, clamouring round his skull and not stopping for one minute, not even for one second. Eighty-Seven staggered backwards, away from the sloping walls and fluttering flags, away from those voices.

It was only when he was out of sight of the castle and the voices had dimmed and hushed, that he stopped and gave himself a moment to think. Right now, as he was, it would be impossible for Eighty-Seven to get help if he couldn’t get a hold of himself. For a moment there, it had felt like he was back at Pressy’s Tumble. The noise there had been unbelievable. It was as if everything in his life had been at low volume and suddenly someone had turned it up to max. But now that Eighty-Seven had calmed down a bit, he realised that the level of noise was the only similarity to be found here. They didn’t feel scared. Whoever was in that castle felt… angry, amused, fond _belligerentjealousirritateddizzycuriousembarrassedinlov_ -

He cut himself off again, drawing back as his skull started to throb painfully. His stomach rolled. With hunger or nausea, Eighty-Seven couldn’t tell. All he knew was that everything hurt… But he couldn’t stay in the woods forever. Right. Getting a hold of himself. He could do this. Suck it in, ignore the voices. _Yeah_. He was ready! Eighty-Seven took in a deep breath, stood up and marched down the road towards the castle.

He blacked out about a meter away from the entrance.

* * *

The second awakening Eighty-Seven experienced on the green planet was _much_ less gentle and relaxing than the first. Someone dumping a bucket of water on his face generally had an unrelaxing effect.

“What the-?!”

“Alive. Called it. You owe me a drink.”

There was a screaming, roaring reply that Eighty-Seven couldn’t even begin to understand. He couldn’t hear the screamer’s thoughts, his head felt all fuzzy and blank. He blinked stupidly up at the two figures looming over him in the evening gloom. Oh. People. Actual, non-First Order people. Be cool, Eighty-Seven, be cool.

“Uh, thanks, for waking me,” Eighty-Seven squeaked, squashing down his internal panic and shakily clambering up to his feet. He grimaced, both at his voice and at the cold, damp feeling of his shirt clinging to his skin.

“No problem,” dismissed the non-screaming one, a human by the looks of it. “Go talk to Maz, you look like you could do with her help.”

The other figure roared something at that and Eighty-Seven could maybe just about detect a feeling of fondness coming from him. The human growled back, turning away and stalking off into the night with the hairy alien following.

“No way. She’s still pissed at me and you know it,” the man hissed as the other one whined at him. “And no. _No,_ _I’m_ _not_ Chewie. He was just… in the way. Besides it was funny to throw water at him.”

Eighty-Seven barely heard the roared reply, and only just sensed a faint feeling of disbelief. He ignored it and shook his head, clearing nothing but the water from his face. His mind still felt like it had been stuffed with wool.

“Right, okay, _Maz_ ,” he murmured, turning to face the grand entrance laid out before him. Flags peacefully fluttered in the wind, crisscrossed above Eighty-Seven’s head and splayed against the steep incline of the castle walls, masking the aged sandstone in a wash of vibrant colours and unfamiliar symbols. In the middle of it all, there was a statue of a dramatic figure with a cape looking up to the sky with their arms stretched wide. Eighty-Seven wondered whether this was Maz. He hoped not. He had encountered many minds of people who wanted (or had) statues made of themselves. They were generally not the sort of folk Eighty-Seven would ask for help. Nonetheless, it wasn’t like he had much of a choice right now. It was either get help or learn how to live as a hermit in the woods and hope no one from the First Order ever found him.

… _Yeah_ , he’d take a statue loving narcissist.

Mind made up, Eighty-Seven started moving towards the castle. Through the walls, a low hum of chatter and a steady beat of music drifted out. It only got louder as Eighty-Seven finally pushed open the doors and stumbled in. His brain fizzled softly as the number of voices went up. A few heads turned as the door shut behind him and he just stood there, waiting for his mind to stop bubbling. It took about a minute or so for him to realise that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. Pressing one hand to his forehead in a pitiful attempt to squash down the numb headache, he stumbled further into the room, focusing intently on his surroundings as if this would block out the screaming ringing filling up his skull. It didn’t work exactly, the ringing was still there, but Eighty-Seven hadn’t keeled over either so a win was a win.

The room he had found himself could only be classified as a room because it had walls and a ceiling. Eighty-Seven would have called it a hall but in his mind, halls were either thin sterile pathways or a gigantic space where presentations and speeches happened. This was not a place for speeches, unless they were the rambling drunken kind that ended with cheers and laughter rather than an empty echo of thousands of stormtroopers saluting as one. The room was dark but in a cozy way; the large space was made small with warm light lined with dark shadows. Beings of many different shapes and sizes lined the walls in groups of twos and threes. They drank and chattered, playing games and slouching back into their seats. Slowly, as Eighty-Seven took in the relaxed atmosphere and comforting colours of his surrounding, the throbbing ache in his head started to abate-

“Hmm, you _’_ re new.”

-only to rapidly grow into a piercing pain.

Eighty-Seven turned on the spot. There was a small orange-skinned woman looking up at him, a glass in one hand and a towel in the other. She… looked strange. Not in her actual appearance, but in her blur. At first, Eighty-Seven couldn’t see it, which made no sense because everything living had one. Hell, even androids had them so why didn’t- then he saw it. Then he noticed the haze around her where her blur should have been, like it had been rolled out, thin but wide reaching. Eighty-Seven had never seen a blur like it before; it looked like it hurt. It certainly hurt to look at it, so he stopped, focusing on her face instead. She was frowning up at him, eyes narrowed behind her magnified glasses.

“Come, come sit down. You look like you need a rest.”

“Uh, yeah, I do. Thanks.”

“Hmm, don’t thank me yet. I’m saying you look awful.”

“…Thanks.”

The humanoid (Maz, Eighty-Seven was guessing by their resemblance to the statue outside) chuckled and shook her head, leading him to the bar and waving a hand at one of the seats there. She hopped up behind it and poured him out a brown drink.

“Thanks,” he murmured as he took it.

“You say that often,” Maz commented, sitting on her own, slightly taller stool as poured out her own drink. Eighty-Seven shrugged, took a sip of his drink and did his best not to spit it out. _E chu ta,_ that was gross. His attempt at calmly swallowing down the… whatever it was, obviously wasn’t good enough by the way Maz was knowingly smiling at him over her drink.

“So, what brings you here? You were looking for me, yes?”

“I, uh, yeah. This man outside said you- how did you know I was looking for you?” Eighty-Seven leaned forward, eyes round and wide, trying to think of how exactly he could have given away he was looking for her. He hadn’t though. He’d done nothing, which meant-

“Your clothes are burnt, your skin too by the smell of it, and you look like you’re about to fall over. You need help and _everyone_ comes to Maz when they need help.”

_Oh_. Eighty-Seven leaned back, no longer wide-eyed, and nodded. “Yes, I need help.”

Maz hummed and took another swig of her drink, draining it in one large gulp. “What can I do for you?”

There was a long pause. The energy whispered around her, shifting and hinting at things to come. It made it hard to think of what to say, so when a thought did come, Eighty-Seven didn’t hesitate to say it out loud.

“You have any jobs going?”

Eighty-Seven blinked as his overworked mind took in what he just said. He hadn’t planned on asking that but, well, something about those words felt right. It was as if the air was humming around him. He made a good choice. Or at least, he thought he made a good choice. Maz was staring at him strangely, humming as her brow scrunched up with thought.

“… Got a reference?”

“I- uh- no.”

Maz sighed. “One day _someone_ will say yes to that question.” She smiled ruefully and started to rub her chin, still staring at Eighty-Seven. He fidgeted under her gaze.

“Got a name?”

“No.” Something told him not to lie to this woman.

“You’re being honest,” she stated, brow raising and Eighty-Seven looked away.

“Look, if you don’t have anything it’s fine, thanks anyway,” he muttered, bracing his hands on the bar to push away. Two wizened hands shot out and grasped him by the wrists, holding him still. Eighty-Seven did his best not to flinch at her touch but something must have shown in his face. Maz quickly pulled her hands back and stared intently at him.

“No need to thank me. I haven’t done anything, _yet_.”

Eighty-Seven sat back down.

“We’ve been needing a new cleaner round here, plumber too if you’ve got the skill set for it.”

Boy, did he ever. Years on sanitation had given Eighty-Seven more of a skill set in plumbing than he’d ever wanted. He didn’t say this though; he just nodded.

“Excellent. You start tomorrow. I’ll get one of the droids to show you the ropes in the morning. You will sleep in one of the guest rooms tonight. Up three sets of stairs and forth on the right. That one should be free.”

Eighty-Seven didn’t move.

“You’re being serious?”

“Don’t ask foolish questions.”

“Uh, yes sir.”

“And don’t call me sir.”

“Yes, mam.”

Maz cocked her brow but didn’t bother correcting him. Instead, she threw a plastic pack at him from under the bar.

“And treat your back. I won’t have you scaring off the customers by smelling like burnt meat.”

“Yes, mam. And uh, thanks,” he grinned, lips parting over shiny white teeth and eyes crinkling as he bobbed his head in an awkward show of gratitude.

Maz didn’t say anything, she just watched as he turned and left, rushing up the stairs like he was scared that she’d change her mind if he didn’t hurry.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey :)  
> I hope you all are doing okay out there, wherever in the world you are and whatever your circumstances are. I don't know about you, but I have been reading a lot more fanfic in the last few months. It's been a huge help in keeping me calm and happy. So yeah, if I can make anyone happy with this, then I'll be happy. Take care of yourselves.

* * *

Later, if anyone ever asked Eighty-Seven what working in Maz’s castle was like, he probably would have described it as an ‘experience.’ Which is, of course, an incredibly vague answer and his audience would have been duty bound to harangue him into giving them a proper one.

The proper answer may have had a few more details to it but could basically be summed up in the same way. It was an experience, both good and bad. Mostly good though. The bad parts were apparent from the very start. Mainly in that it felt like someone had fused a jackhammer to his skull with the sheer volume of thoughts surrounding him. It was better than before, now that he’d had time to rest and treat his injuries, but it was still painful during the evening rush hours. 

There was also the little problem of just how unused Eighty-Seven was to living outside the First Order. His room had a _bath_ in it. The first day he had stared at it for a good ten minutes trying to figure out what it was _for_ before being interrupted by a protocol droid hammering on his door. He’d had to spend his first day smelling like, as Maz so aptly put it, burned meat. The toilets smelt worse though so that wasn’t much of a problem. The second day he had somewhat figured the bath out by examining all the plumbing but privately thought that showers were more effective. (It would take over a month for him to realise he was supposed to fill the tub up to wash.)

Getting paid had also been a surprise. Eighty-Seven knew what credits were, obviously, but he’d never owned any before. When Maz slapped a stack of them in his hand after the first day, he had to refrain himself from asking if she was sure. He ended up only using it to buy some clothes off a peddler to replace his black thermals. He bought some clean basic shirts, pants, socks, brown cotton trousers, a tan leather jacket, and boots. The boots were his favourite. They had embroidered stars on the side and were the nicest things he’d ever owned. In fact, these clothes were the _only_ things he’d ever owned. It felt good to own something.

The rest of the credits he packed away in a bag. Eighty-Seven was unsure of what else to do with them. He already had a place to sleep and the kitchen droids told him he could help himself to leftovers, so what use did he have for _more_ money? Said leftovers had _definitely_ been a shock. They were cold but Eighty-Seven, who had never eaten hot food before, had happily accepted them. They were the food of Emperors, with not a single vitamin pellet or nutrition paste in sight. There weren’t even any processed energy bars! Instead there were things like mashed tubers and roasted unprocessed protein called meat. He discovered he had a particular fondness for gravy pies. The whole process of eating had suddenly become… _enjoyable_. Eighty-Seven had never thought he’d enjoy _food_ of all things.

While a lot of things were confusing in the castle, the work itself was simple enough. Toilets were toilets wherever in the verse you went to; People didn’t mess with the basics of plumbing. And the fact that he had a whole castle to clean and fix was no problem at all; one quadrant of the Starkiller was approximately three times this size and Eighty-Seven could move fast.

It was the people who were the real stumbling block for him. There were a few other cleaners and handymen working alongside Eighty-Seven. They didn’t like it when he worked fast and sometimes thought nasty things about him. (He slowed down when they were working in sight but sped up when by himself. He didn’t want to shirk his duty to Maz.) The protocol android, GU2-D7, who had showed him around, felt grumpy and irritable, making loads of sarcastic comments and occasionally shoving past him, and Eighty-Seven couldn’t for the life of him figure out why.

_(At night, lying on the strange, springy cushion they gave him for a bed, he’d think about how its name was so similar to his own designation and why that was.)_

It wasn’t just his co-workers that caused him difficulties though. It was the customers too. Whenever Eighty-Seven happened to encounter them, he felt overwhelmed by how loud and terrifying their thoughts were. The first time he heard one of them thinking about their ties to the First Order, Eighty-Seven almost bolted. The only thing that stopped him from stealing a ship and running was knowing that he had nowhere to run too. This place was safe. Or, at least, as safe as it could be. Maz made sure it stayed that way with her strict ‘no violence’ rules and all-knowing demeanour.

But she couldn’t know everything.

* * *

‘ _Put it in his food before he gets it. Just need a chance_ ’

Eighty-Seven sat behind the bar, one hand on the broken jawa beer tap and another on a spanner, fingers squeezing tightly around the metal. He’d been stood like that for five minutes now, unmoving as he scanned the crowds for the source of that poisonous voice and for its victim.

‘ _He’ll never know what hit’im_.’

Found him.

He was a bounty hunter, that much was clear. Even if Eighty-Seven wasn’t hearing the evidence in his head, he’d be able to tell just by the man’s looks alone. The last few weeks had been overwhelming but also highly informative. Bounty hunters were paranoid. Or at least, the ones who survived long enough to become regulars at Maz’s were. They were generally armed, clad in armour and had a mask or helmet with gas filters close at hand. While this one had all that, it was clear he was new to the job. He wanted to break Maz’s ‘no killing’ rule. So, yes, definitely new.

No one was looking at the man; no one saw the way he eyed up his target with a hungry gaze or noticed when he got up and crept towards the kitchens. It was a busy night and there were many customers to hide behind so no one noticed Eighty-Seven following after him either.

It took Eighty-Seven only a second to register the scene that awaited him in the kitchen before he reacted. He held no blaster, no weapon of any conventional kind, but he still had a wrench and he used it to great effect. The bounty hunter crumpled into a large, quivering lump, hands clasped tightly between his legs, knocking over the pot of soup he’d been poised over. A bag of white powder slipped out of his grip, spilling onto the floor just as the chef barged over. He’d obviously heard the bounty hunter’s high-pitched screeching.

Now, Eighty-Seven hadn’t been working at Maz’s for long but even he knew that messing with head Chef Strono Tuggs was about the worst thing you could possibly do, barring messing with Maz and her protocol bodyguard Emmie. The head chef had a _reputation_. He’d heard the cleaners, the cooks _and_ the customers talking about him. Some believed that he was an ex-convict with a rap sheet a parsec long. Some thought of him as a cold-blooded murderer while others thought fondly of him as a surly old bastard. One cleaner said to Eighty-Seven that his deformities affected his mind, making him aggressive and violent, especially to those he didn’t know. The man had been grinning as he said that though, staring at Eighty-Seven and gleefully wondering if he’d get to watch when the newbie first met the chef.

Eighty-Seven was glad that man wasn’t there now. Tuggs stared down at Eighty-Seven through his mismatched red and white eyes, then looked at the powder on the floor and the crunched-up bounty hunter whimpering on the floor. Like Maz, Eighty-Seven didn’t get a very clear read off the cook, but he could feel the curiosity creeping over him. Eighty-Seven almost jumped when Tuggs suddenly snorted and nodded to himself before one-handedly hauling up the whimpering bounty hunter by the scruff of his neck, as easy as if he were made of feathers.

“Don’t move,” he said to Eighty-Seven before limping out of the kitchen, snivelling bounty hunter in hand.

Eighty-Seven hadn’t realised he’d been holding his breath until he let it go. He looked around, not daring to move an inch as he stood in the middle of a mess of spilt soup and powdered poison, hand still squeezing tightly at his wrench. The kitchen staff were giving him odd looks but Eighty-Seven didn’t pay them much mind. He could hear their thoughts. They were mainly curious about what happened and perhaps a bit wary of how Tuggs would yell at them for not spotting the obvious intruder sooner. No, Eighty-Seven was more worried about Maz’s android bodyguard Emmie crashing in, electrocuting him with the golden filaments in her fingers and dragging him down to a holding cell like he’d seen her do once before. Or, worse, of being simply thrown out the castle for breaking Maz’s rule, with nowhere to go. He performed an act of violence. He hadn’t really thought about it. The man was pouring poison in another person’s food, into food that would have gone to a _lot_ of people. And that man hadn’t cared about it at all and Eighty-Seven just wanted to stop him and… and perhaps Maz would be understanding if he just explained?

Eighty-Seven felt the cook return and so didn’t jump when he suddenly spoke up from behind.

“You hungry?”

Eighty-Seven blinked in surprise and turned. Tuggs just levelled him with a no-nonsense look and waited for his answer. 

“No? I mean, I’ve already eaten for today.”

Tuggs didn’t seem to like that response for some reason. It didn’t show on his lopsided, taciturn face but Eighty-Seven could feel it.

“You’re eating,” Tuggs decided, gently shoving Eighty-Seven out of the mess he’d been stood in and towards one of the chairs on the side of the kitchen before limping off to one of the stoves to fry something up. 

And so proceeded what was probably the most awkward meal of Eighty-Seven’s entire life. He had to watch others clean up a mess that he caused while being ignored every time he reminded Tuggs he had work to do, and when he was given the food, he was in such a rush to eat it and be gone that he burnt his mouth. Eighty-Seven had to make quick use of his Calm to stop himself from visibly reacting to his damaged mouth. Why was the food _hot_? Was this normal?

Right then, he was too stressed to care. He just blowed at his food, scraped his plate clean and dashed off before the cook tried to force him to eat anything else

* * *

Maz came to him the next morning, just as he was finishing fixing the lock on one of the guest room doors, and offered him a new job.

“Bouncer?” He repeated, dusting off his hands and tilting his head curiously.

“Yes, yes, I heard what I said. You don’t need to say it again.”

Not many people knew this about Stormtroopers, but they had a relatively good education system- in certain, specific subjects. They were expected to know about alien species in great detail in case they ever came across one and needed to know how to kill it. To Eighty-Seven’s mind, Bouncers were furry green floating orbs with thin black tails from the planet Ruusan. He highly doubted this was what Maz intended for him to be. Eighty-Seven considered how to ask what being a bouncer meant without making it obvious he didn’t know.

“…What would that involve?”

Eighty-Seven knew he hadn’t fooled Maz for a second going by the frown she levelled him with but, thankfully, she didn’t press it.

“Your job is to look pretty, stand round the front and keep people from causing trouble.”

Oh, so like yesterday, plus whatever she meant by being ‘pretty’. He could do that. He probably could do this bouncing thing _really_ well but…

“But what about Emmie?” He asked, thinking of the gold plated, pokerfaced android who always stared at him whenever they were in the same room.

“She’s not a bouncer. She’s an enforcer.”

Eighty-Seven wasn’t sure of the difference there but didn’t ask.

“But then, don’t you already have a bouncer? The man at the door with the leather…” he trailed off trying to think of the word as he made a gesture over his legs. Maz seemed to find this amusing but it didn’t show on her face as she nodded.

“I had a bouncer.”

“So why would you-”

“No, listen child. Use your ears and that bit of brain between them. I _had_ a bouncer but they shirked their job. So, I need a new one. _You_.”

Eighty-Seven only just stopped himself from asking why; Maz told him to think.

“This is because of yesterday. You _want_ me to hit people with spanners?”

Maz snorted and pulled something off her belt, passing it to Eighty-Seven, who almost dropped it when he realised what it was. A blaster. It wasn’t the model he was used to. There was no sleek, white casing; it was a dull grey with scuff marks at the trigger. And it was smaller, with only one handle so it could be wielded easier.

“You any good with a blaster?”

Eighty-Seven almost laughed.

“Yes, but…” he trailed off, examining the settings only for his eyes to widen as he realised it was set to stun. He smiled up at Maz who huffed.

“I’d prefer the blaster to be a last resort and I definitely don’t want any killing in my bar. If it comes to that, call me or Emmie.”

And with that she tossed another device at him, a coms unit. Eighty-Seven plucked it out of the air perhaps a second too fast; Maz was frowning at him again.

“Uh, right. Thanks mam, I’ll get right on it.”

“Yes, yes, you go bounce around, Bright Smile.”

* * *

Bouncing didn’t involve any actual bouncing, much to Eighty-Seven’s relief. Instead it involved a lot of standing around, looking casual and trying not to frown as he sifted through the melting pot of thoughts and feelings swirling around him. Some of the people who came to Maz’s weren’t nice people. Well, actually, a _lot_ of people who came to Maz’s weren’t ‘nice’ people. But there was a difference between ‘not nice’ and ‘ _not_ nice’, and Eighty-Seven learned it fast.

In truth, the first night was a learning experience all around. Eighty-Seven learned that bar brawls were not as fun as the customers’ stories made them out to be, Maz learned that her new hire was indeed good with his blaster and the clientele learned that the new bouncer had no qualms about kicking them up the creek. After the dust had cleared and after Emmie and Eighty-Seven had slammed the front door behind the exiled customers, he brushed off his hands and flashed a toothy smile at the remaining clientele.

The night after that was quiet.

Eighty-Seven learned a lot of new things on this job. One being that smiling (for some reason) made people less likely to drunkenly attack him. He really didn’t understand why it spooked the regulars though, or why it made the newer customers think uncomfortable things about him and try to give him alcohol. He made a rule of simply saying that he didn’t drink on the job. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn’t. When it didn’t, he just ignored them until they got the message or until Emmie noticed and started silently looming over them. Using his Calm helped sometimes with unwanted attention. He’d balance himself on the knife edge of thought and feeling then carefully focus on being mundane, boring, just another person of no note in an overcrowded room. He rarely resorted to this though. It took a lot of concentration to keep up and it stopped him from concentrating on reading the room for trouble.

During the first week as a bouncer, his vocabulary almost doubled in size with words he would _never_ say out loud. He started skimming for certain words in particular: ‘First Order’ so that he could keep out of their sight, ‘kill’ for obvious reasons and ‘slaves’ for Maz. Maz didn’t like slavers. Eighty-Seven, once he understood what slavers were, approved of this mindset wholeheartedly.

At night, lying in a bed that was too big, between walls which were too wide and staring at a ceiling that was too high, he thought about those slavers. He thought about them and wondered if that was how the First Order got its recruits. And then he wondered if that was how the First Order got him. So yes, Eighty-Seven approved of Maz when she entered one of the ships he’d pointed out and came out with fire in her eyes and a fierce smile on her face.

(She didn’t ask how he knew. He’d been prepared for that, to lie and pretend he’d simply heard them talking. But she didn’t ask. She just pulled off her goggles, peered up at him through old, wizened eyes and nodded.)

That first time he told Maz, he was surprised when she seemingly did nothing. She served the men their blue beer and laughed at their jokes like she would with anyone else. She didn’t even touch their ship. It wasn’t until a week later, when Eighty-Seven overheard a group of Yakas discussing the recent pirate attack on the same slaver’s ship, that he started to suspect.

The next time he mentioned overhearing some less than savoury plans, Maz didn’t even bother verifying it. She just nodded, smiled and went to chat with the group of kidnappers, playing the host to great effect. This time, Eighty-Seven spotted the tracking beacon she placed in one of their bags. This time he took note of her going off world two days later, of how long she took and of how she clapped his shoulder when she came back still smelling of oil and smoke. Eighty-Seven never mentioned any of these observations. All were welcome at Maz’s place, or so they say. But only for one night. After that, if a pirate crew happened to intercept a ship on its way out of the system and left no one alive save those who would gratefully keep a secret, well, who’s to say it had anything to do with Maz? Or Eighty-Seven?

During those times when Maz was off world, Eighty-Seven helped Tuggs and Emmie keep an eye on the place. Maz never told him to, hell, no one told him to, and this is perhaps why he did it. He would chat with the androids, not speaking a word of binary but interpreting their shapeless thoughts and vibrant emotions well enough that many thought he could. He would help the cleaning staff, when they were down a member, or fix the plumbing when the droids gave it up as a bad job. He would only do this when there was no other choice though. The second someone grouchily wondered if he was trying to step on their toes or steal their job, he was out. He’d smile at them, ducking his head into his shoulders, and ask an interesting question or share a piece of gossip he overheard. Nine times out of ten, they would forget they were ever mad at him.

Eighty-Seven filled every second of the day with something. From listening to people’s problems, eavesdropping on the thoughts of the less scrupulous customers and doing his best to give his colleagues their privacy, he kept working. All while trying to block out the whispers creeping up from beneath his feet. Eighty-Seven knew that Maz’s castle had once been a Jedi temple a long time ago. She told him so late one night when they had been locking up. She felt pained when she said it, like she was reopening a wound with just the words, and he quickly decided not to ask anymore. Sometimes though, he would stand at the top of the stairs to the basements and stare into the darkness, listening to forgotten voices scream out before thinking of something else (anything else) he could be doing.

And there were so many things to do. He jogged through the forest, he carefully and cautiously ate with Tuggs, he felt out the Calm in the privacy of his room, he tried different drinks with Maz and enjoyed her chuckles at the faces he made, he sat out by the lakeside skimming stones and smiling at the light bouncing off the water, and he felt content. For the first time ever, Eighty-Seven felt like he was doing something he was _supposed_ to be doing.

And then that feeling changed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya, sorry for the delay. I've been both having too many ideas and too few at the same time. I have so many different divergent paths this story could go down and I spent ages on them before deciding I was making this story much more complicated than it needs to be.  
> Hopefully I've made the right choice and you guys enjoy what's to come.  
> 

* * *

It started with his dreams. They were disturbed, fractured things and, in truth, had been for a good while now ( _ever since he saw FN-2119 bleeding out through the hole in his heart, ever since he woke up one night to find that the exhausted squad mate in the pod next to him had died in her sleep, ever since_ -) but recently the dreams had grown even worse. They were difficult to understand, distorted with horrible images of blood-stained ice fields and people burning, and mixed in with warped memories that Eighty-Seven didn’t even want to put a name to. It was like something was trying to force its way into his skull, messing up his already messed up dreams to the extent that he couldn’t sleep the whole night through anymore.

Every night, Eighty-Seven would cannon up out of his bed, sweat soaking his clothes and eyes wide and wild as he brought his hands up to shield against the descending meteor stream of red light, only to find it wasn’t there. He was safe… but he didn’t _feel_ safe.

(He knew what those red lights were.)

He tried to use his Calm but that didn’t always help either. Those same images would appear, clearer this time, less distorted. It was a warning. Another bloody warning. And Eighty-Seven didn’t want it. He didn’t want to run away again, he didn’t want to find out what the First Order was doing, he just wanted things to stay as they were. 

After a week or so of this, Eighty-Seven figured that when he woke up there was little point in going back to sleep and had taken to leaving his room for the night and distracting himself with little jobs. Sometimes he’d check the roof for missing tiles or walk around the castle perimeter for any encroachers. On this night, Eighty-Seven was buffing out a crude carving on the bar, humming an earworm song he’d heard someone thinking earlier that day. It was there that Maz found him.

“Credit for your thoughts?”

Eighty-Seven stopped buffing the table and looked up, meeting the kind, wizened eyes of his patron across the table. It didn’t occur to him to lie to her, even if he didn’t feel like saying much.

“Just some dreams”

“...Bad dreams?”

Eighty-Seven nodded and started buffing the table again, only to stop entirely at Maz’s next words.

“It is because you’re scared.”

“Huh? No, I’m not.” Eighty-Seven’s head snapped up. He had been scared before. Here, he was safe, he was happy. How could he be scared? Maz shook her head thoughtfully.

“You are. You’re scared, child. You’re scared and that’s why you see things that scare you.”

“…I don’t….”

“You fear change.”

And, yes, that was true but…

“I… fear a lot of things,” he murmured quietly.

Maz shook her head again and sighed, grabbing a glass from the table and inspecting it. It must have passed inspection as she pulled out a hip flask and filled it up.

“No,” she said as the amber liquid gurgled into the glass. “You fear _change_. You feared leaving wherever you came from and now you fear that you will have to leave here. I see it in your eyes.”

She pushed the glass towards Eighty-Seven and took a swig from what was left in the flask.

“I... don’t want to leave,” Eighty-Seven murmured, running a finger over the rim of the glass. A faint hum filled the air. Maz briefly smiled at the sound before her expression grew contemplative.

“That’s normal. You shouldn’t fear change though. You _are_ change. A change for the better.”

The humming stopped.

“…What?”

“Next time you hear talk of slavers, I want you to come with us, Bright Smile.”

Oh, so they _were_ acknowledging the whole Slaver hunting thing.

“But-”

“I’m offering you change. Not a safe change, maybe not even a good change. But it might be enough to appease the Force.”

And that was when it hit him. Oh, he was such an idiot. _Of course_ it was the Force. He’d heard about Kylo Ren. He knew the stories; the old tales of people ( _traitors_ ) who could manipulate events, people, and even the energy of the universe to their will. The Blur? The Calm? It was all the force. All this time, he’d been a force user and he just never knew it. But Maz knew.

Eighty-Seven took a wincing gulp from the glass. “You won’t tell anyone will you?”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” She scoffed. “Me? Tell anyone? _Please_. Your secret is safe.”

“Thanks, Maz.”

Maz sighed. “You say thanks too much.”

And with that, Maz hopped down from the bar and sauntered off to bed, leaving Eighty-Seven sat at the shadow drenched bar, staring into space. He was a force user. He could use the force. He should have realised earlier but, well, he didn’t even think it a possibility. Force users were… well, they were Kylo Ren. They were his shadowy master, the Supreme leader Snoke, who so few had seen but enough for Eighty-Seven to hear the whispers and know he truly existed, and to know what he was _like_. Force users were spoken of in fear and thought of in bleak horror and-

‘ _You’re scared, child. You’re scared and that’s why you see things that scare you._ ’

-and they were also stories told to inspire freeborn children and encourage those who fought against subjugation. They were larger than life figures forever fighting in triumphant battles of good versus evil. They were the hope of thousands, the aspirations of freedom fighters and the heroes for those who dreamt of better lives. They were Jedi. And how could a stormtrooper be that? ...But Eighty-Seven _was_ force sensitive. There was no denying it. He could no longer pretend that his files were wrong and he was some sort of near human with maybe a distant connection to a Cerean, Epicanthix or some other humanoid species with a penchant for mind reading. He knew now that wasn’t it; he was simply connected to the force. Which was terrifying. Eighty-Seven sighed, bracing his head against the bar and running worn hands through his hair. It was getting longer; it would be past his ears by now if it didn’t curl so much. He was no good at cutting his own hair though; it was never even enough for regulations. He used to get Slips to-

Eighty-Seven took a deep, calming breath. And when that didn’t work, he took another. And another. And another. He just kept focusing on his breathing, feeling the Calm- wait, no- the _Force_ pulsing out from beneath his skin. He didn’t want to think about Slips. He wanted to feel the Force. He had to feel it. He _should_ feel it. It was telling him something. He just had to listen. Stop being scared. _Stop being scar_ -

A scream echoed out beneath his feet and Eighty-Seven’s eyes opened with a snap.

“Stop being scared,” he murmured to himself, pushing himself away from the bar and turning to face towards the stairs. Yells and the sound of blaster fire thrummed up from the ground.

“Stop being scared,” he repeated as he stood at the top of the stairs, facing the dark catacombs that stretched out before him. Some of the screams sounded young. His hands began to shake.

 _Stop being scared_ , he thought to himself, not wanting to hear his own voice echo back at him as he forced his feet to move, creeping down, into the darkness. There was a thrumming sound. Then, a sudden sharp whoosh of a lightsaber igniting. But instead of giving light, it sucked it in like a black hole, until all there was to be seen was the black. 

_Stop being-_

A hand snapped out.

And Eighty-Seven took it in his.

“I’m not scared of you,” he told it and the pale, papery surface of the claw-like hand evened out into soft, pink-flushed skin. Light flooded the room and the hand pulled at him, yanking him forward into a stumbling run as his eyes adjusted to the fiery orange and glowing blue surroundings. The woman in front of him ploughed forward through burning sand and burning tents. Her brown hair was done up in three buns and her frame was swaddled in light, flowing desert clothes. She ran desperately but didn’t let go of Eighty-Seven. Not once. Her hand felt nice in his. A voice, _her_ voice, started echoing out from behind, quiet and pained and completely at odds with the vibrant energy of the image before him.

“We’ll see each other again. I believe that.”

Eighty-Seven turned around, slipping from her desperate grip as he tried to see what was happening. The world around him changed, twisting and melting into a greener, calmer scene. A man stood beneath a strange tree with copper leaves and a glowing centre. He grinned at Eighty-Seven, toothy and joyful. He clapped him on the shoulder, warm eyes crinkling with mirth. 

“You still need a pilot, pal?”

Everything blurred again, except for the man, and suddenly they were both on Takodana, just outside of Maz’s castle. But Eighty-Seven barely noticed. He was still staring at the man’s gentle smile. The man winked at him, his rich brown eyes glowing in the warm light of their surroundings. The light was growing, staining the earth red. It was only when the strange man looked up, that his smile faded. Eighty-Seven stared at him for a moment longer before he followed his gaze up to the growing light. Red streaks of light were shooting through the sky above their head, like the vapour trails of fighter planes. Only Eighty-Seven knew that wasn’t what they were.

“It’s too late to stop it,” said the woman, suddenly standing next to the man, her hand joining his on Eighty-Seven’s shoulder, their fingers lacing. Her expression was fierce and furious as she stared up at the sky. “It will hurt.”

Eighty-Seven faced her, mouth opening to speak, but no words came.

“See you soon,” said the man, seemingly not hearing the woman’s words, pulling back his hand from Eighty-Seven and the woman’s to give them both a lazy, laughing salute. 

And, with that, the vision faded away. The world was stone and shadows once more. Eighty-Seven blinked back against the tears beading in his eyes, ran a shaking hand over his face, and grinned. 

* * *

Three days later, when Eighty-Seven told Maz about the slaver network he’d overheard, he asked to join her. She smiled and dropped a tray of used glasses down on the counter.

“We leave in two days. Make sure to get some target practice in.” She handed him a blaster, larger this time, and not set to stun. Eighty-Seven considered this then changed the settings.

He didn’t practice that evening. He was working and had to let Emmie know of a group of cabals trying to entice some new customers into sharing their ideals. (Maz didn’t like politics in her bar. They didn’t mix well with alcohol.) Then he had to help out in the kitchen when Tuggs hurt his leg slipping on spilt blue milk that no one would own up to spilling. It was only after that, once the doors were locked and the last of the customers swaggered or staggered off to their ships or up to their beds, that Eighty-Seven took out the blaster and slipped out the back of the castle into the night. He had gotten a bit rusty in his time at Maz’s. His shots still hit the target (the centre of a knoll of a fallen tree) but he needed to aim first. He needed to concentrate and hold his hand steady. So, yes, Maz was right, he needed to practice.

It was probably a few hours later, just as the sun was starting to peak through the horizon of trees, that he heard the clunking, whirring of an approaching android. Emmie stared down at him from the top of the dell he’d found to practice in. She didn’t say anything; she rarely did. Her immobile golden face gave away nothing of her thoughts and Eighty-Seven could only just read a faint sense of curiosity from her before she pointed at the sky, at him, then back to the castle.

“Okay, uh, I’m coming?”

Emmie nodded and turned away. Eighty-Seven trailing after her with a puzzled look and a jawbreaking yawn.

He went to bed, woke up, went to work and, when evening came around, he went to practice his shooting again. Emmie followed him this time. Again, she didn’t speak. She only ever used her voice synthesiser when she _had_ to or when offering customers her translation services. Eighty-Seven still felt the curiosity coming from her though, and a vague feeling of confusion and apprehension.

“You want to practice too?” He asked, holding out the blaster. Emmie looked at the blaster with a feeling of derision and faced the log with an outstretched palm. Eighty-Seven heeded the sudden klaxon-like warning echoing through the Force and ducked down just in time to avoid the surge of splinters from the exploding ex-tree. Emmie was staring down at Eighty-Seven, feeling satisfied about something.

“Okay, so no need for practice then,” Eighty-Seven huffed out, running a hand over his hair to dislodge the shards of wood. Emmie just nodded and continued to watch as Eighty-Seven chuckled to himself and went in search of another target.

* * *

“You’ve never wanted to before,” Eighty-Seven heard Maz commenting the next day as he made his way towards her ship: ‘Stranger’s Fortune’. He paused, looking away from the grey and gold-plated hull. Maz and Emmie stood at the front of the ship, Maz leaning against one of the sliding doorways with a contemplative frown and Emmie stood with a cloth sack clamped under her arm. 

“I am needed,” she clipped out in her metallic voice. For a moment, Eighty-Seven was taken back to the stark white halls of the Starkiller and the sight of a shiny, silver helmet turning his way. The moment ended with Maz’s voice.

“Hmm, well, yes. Go tell Strono he’s in charge then. We’re leaving in ten minutes,” she shrugged, waving Emmie off before turning to Eighty-Seven with a large grin.

“You’re late,” Eighty-Seven opened his mouth to argue this (he was early even!) but Maz didn’t let him get out a single complaint. “Come now, I will show you around!”

Eighty-Seven quickly identified Stranger’s Fortune as a low-altitude imperial transport (more commonly known as a LAIT). It was old, from the time of the Galactic Empire, and had been owned by many people, most less favourable than Maz. It looked somewhat similar to some of the ships the First Order used, but only in that there were numerous weapons decorating the hull and that the design of the ship allowed for the people on board to fire weapons from the hangers on either side. That was where the similarities ended. The outside was covered in gold and red swirls of paint and a mishmash of graffitied calligraphy from different planets and cultures printed in an array of eye-catching colours and styles. Inside, it was much the same except _more so_. There were rugs and tapestries draped everywhere, thick and warm and interwoven with gold threads. Little nicknacks filled every corner and crevice of the ship. Strange shapes of blown glass with ever-glowing lights inside, ancient-looking carvings of oddly proportioned humanoid figures with flaking blue and green paint, and orate mahogany boxes filled to the brim with odd devices, brass cogwheels and carved gems. Eighty-Seven only realised his mouth had fallen open when Maz laughed at him and waved at him to follow her. Eager to see more of her ship, he did. The warm, cluttered appearance of the ship continued to get more cluttered the further in they they went. The kitchen was small and Eighty-Seven could have thought it cramped but instead he saw it as cozy; as was the crew quarters.

“When we’re not on the job, we sleep in shifts,” explained Maz, thumping a wall compartment and sending a fold up bunk clattering down. It had a simple but thick fleece covering it. “We share three rooms. You’re with Hooks. Each of us has our own bed though. This one is yours, along with the cupboard underneath it. Blanket’s yours too; it gets cold in space. You can take it with you when we get back. Call it a gift.”

Eighty-Seven swallowed dryly and nodded, hand ghosting across the rich red fleece Maz had _given_ him.

“I’ll let you settle in. Meet us in the cockpit in ten.” Maz smiled and patted him on the back. Eighty-Seven didn’t flinch at her touch, only then realising hadn’t done so for a long time.

"Huh," he murmured before smiling brightly and turning to follow after his captain. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep safe you guys x


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *swans in half a year late with a starbucks and a facemask* S'up
> 
> Just a warning for this chapter, I'm going a bit darker with the contents. I'll update the tags and such- not sure if I should change the rating? The darker stuff is mostly implied and not outright described... let me know if you think I should change it. I'll include a list of things to watch out for so if you want to avoid being surprised then skip this. If there's anything I've missed, please let me know and I'll add it to the tags. 
> 
> Warnings:  
> Slavery, violence, kidnapping, harm to minors, implied sexual abuse of minors.

* * *

It took the crew the better part of a week to catch up with the latest bunch of slavers. During that time, Eighty-Seven came to learn a lot about the life of a pirate. Apparently, it mostly involved chores, playing cards, chores, being annoyed by Hooks, and even more chores. It was lucky he was good at cleaning. Cooking, however, was another matter.

On the day they caught up with the slavers, Eighty-Seven had been on food duty and it was unanimously agreed that this had been a mistake.

The only ones who weren’t making Eighty-Seven vow to never cook again were Maz (who had taken one look at the pink stew and decided she wasn’t hungry) and Emmie (who couldn’t eat). Emmie was sat in the corner, radiating a soft sense of amusement which was like a soothing balm compared to the waves of sheer disgust rolling off the rest of the crew. Maz was frowning at a device and ignoring Hooks and Draff as they downed several glasses of whisky to drown out the aftertaste of Eighty-Seven’s first and final attempt at cooking.

“Kid, I’lla swap you allas the cookin for cleanin,” said Hooks, slamming his shot glass down and using the back of his hand to wipe the spillage from his wiry beard.

Draffs nodded, pointing at herself then Eighty-Seven with a flurry of hand movements.

At the start of their voyage, Hooks and Emmie tried to translate when Draffs spoke, but that quickly petered out when they realised Eighty-Seven could understand the deaf Gungan without help. Hell, he didn’t even need to look at her hands sometimes to know what she wanted. Like now for instance:

“Sorry. I didn’t know it _had_ to be heated. I won’t do it again,” he muttered, looking away, cheeks burning much hotter than his cooking.

“Stop being mean to our Bright-Smile,” Maz said with a small smile that made everyone still. “We’ve got work to be doing.”

The smile grew and everyone relaxed, including Eighty-Seven. He hadn’t thought Hooks and Draffs were being mean exactly. This was, to date, the longest conversation they had yet had. Most of the talk between them consisted of passing things, telling each other when shifts were over and the occasional teasing remark from Hooks. Eighty-Seven knew they weren’t too impressed by him. Hooks thought he was a dimwitted bouncer, cute, in a naïve, kiddish sort of way. Draffs thought much the same, but in less kind terms.

This was about to change. Not that Eighty-Seven knew it, of course. All he knew was that Maz was loading up a weapon and that he had orders.

Eighty-Seven slipped into place, plucking the blaster out of the air as Emmie threw it to him. He glanced outside of the viewer and let out a soft sigh. There, in the distance was the ship. Eighty-Seven could just make out a faint sheen of rust to it’s hull, turning the metal a reddish black. Underneath and above, two blaster cannons glinted in the light of a nearby star. They were turning towards them.

“Got their attent’n eh?” grinned Hooks, leaning past Eighty-Seven to squint through the view port.

“Not all of them.”

Eighty-Seven’s voice was muffled, his lips too stiff to mould into words. It was quieter out here in space, easier to hear things. He wished it wasn’t. Fingers clicked in front of his eyes and he came back to himself, ignoring the strange whispers escaping the ship as they grew closer and closer.

“Heya, don’t freaks out on us now kid. We gots work to do.”

Eighty-Seven nodded, ignoring the frown forming under Hook’s bristly facial hair, and shoving on his space suit. He looked over and saw Draffs doing the same, tucking her long, tattered ears into the suit with a stoic grimace. Hooks exchanged a look with her before shrugging and leaving for the cockpit.

“Shields on,” crackled Maz’s voice through the speaker system a moment later. “Are you by the hooks, Hooks?”

“Ready an’ waitin’” came Hook’s voice in response, just as crackly.

“Good. Pulling them in, in three, two, one.”

The ship lurched but, as Eighty-Seven glanced outside the viewer again, he could see the slaver ship was lurching even more.

“A tractor beam?” Eighty-Seven asked, glancing at Draffs. She ignored him, instead changing the settings on her blaster.

It didn’t matter. He could hear enough of her thoughts to know that they were winding the Slaver ship in and, even if he couldn’t, he would have been able to tell just by looking through the port view. Eighty-Seven stared as the rusted hull of the ship grew closer and closer. There was a long silence. Then a soft metallic thump. Eighty-Seven turned to see Draffs staring thoughtfully at him as she lowered her fist from the wall she had just hit. She made a series of signs.

‘ _In there, you know what expect?_ ’

Eighty-Seven didn’t respond straight away, he turned back to stare at the ship before closing his eyes and silently nodding. He took a deep breath and faced her again.

“Let’s do this.”

* * *

There was something odd about the people on the ship. Not with the slavers themselves (who’s particular brand of evil Eighty-Seven was uncomfortably familiar with) but with their ‘live cargo’, as they liked to think of them. Eighty-Seven had felt them at a distance but hadn’t realised _how_ odd those people felt until _after_ they finished boarding. During that fight, all he knew was that there was a job to do and he _needed_ to focus.

It was only when he grounded the last slaver with a well-timed slam to their throat, that he had the chance to really take in what he was feeling. He closed his eyes, ignoring Draffs as she caught up to him, her wheezing breath hitching as she took in the trail of unconscious bodies around him.

They were strange, the whispers. They were scared, obviously, but they also felt… incomplete? No, that wasn’t it. The thoughts were whole, he could hear them clear as day, but they were short, like they were chopped up or full of static. Some were easier to read but most of them were more feeling than thought.

‘ _No. No go._ ’

‘ **Sad. Scared. No**.’

‘ _Don’t want. Wh-?_ ’

‘-ire. It’s fire sound. I-.’

‘- ** _o hungry_** ,’

‘Cold. No? Where they?’

Eighty-Seven frowned and opened his eyes.

“Something’s wrong here,” he called out to Hooks as the man turned the corner and almost tripped over one of the unconscious slavers. Hooks frowned at him, then at the bodies before sauntering over to Draffs and clapping her on the back with a sly grin. Draffs didn’t respond. She was still staring at Eighty-Seven.

“Come on. I know where they are,” said Eighty-Seven, turning away from that steady gaze, and thundering out of the aptly named mess hall, towards those voices. There was a split second of hesitation then two mismatched echoes to his pounding footsteps.

“What’s goin’ on? ...Eh? Wha... that guy? No ways! He’s justa kid.”

Eighty-Seven ignored the thoughts and words spilling out behind, instead nodding to Emmie as they turned a corner and found her waiting outside of a thick vault door.

Emmie took a step back, glancing at Eighty-Seven as she turned to pick up one of the bodies and stack them up in a corner, out of sight from whoever would be walking out of that cell.

‘ _Where’s the air‘oles?_ ’ wondered Hooks before his thoughts swiftly turned vicious and dark. Again, Eighty-Seven ignored him. He went to the keypad and entered the code he’d plucked from the slaver captain’s mind.

The heavy metal door groaned and swung outwards, revealing a narrow corridor made of metal cages. The smell of stale sweat and vomit washed over them. A single, bare bulb swung softly half-way down, making the shadows softly dance. It was quiet…

…And Eighty-Seven’s thoughts were full of screams.

He turned, face drawn and stomach heaving. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth and gave himself a moment, just a moment, to let it all wash over him.

“Please.”

It was no longer just in his mind. Hooks and Draffs were frozen behind him, staring into the darkness, understanding what was before them.

‘ _Oh_ … _gods_.’

‘ _Not again._ ’

He felt, rather than heard, Hooks walk past him, kneeling before one of the cages, smiling and offering soft, whispered words. The screams got louder. Even Hooks could hear them, as deaf as he was to the force. He pulled back.

Eighty-Seven took a moment, focusing on the beat of his heart and the breath in his lungs. When he opened his eyes, they were calm once more. He turned to face the darkness. In the nearest cage, a dimly lit bundle of rags shuffled away from him. Slowly, Eighty-Seven sat down, leaned his side against the cage, and made himself listen.

“…It’s okay to be scared,” he commented, voice soft but not a whisper. Expression gentle but not smiling. The prisoners feared the one who whispered and smiled. Eighty-Seven could see him in his mind. He could also see the laser burn in his forehead that Draffs had gifted him before Eighty-Seven took over for a more non-lethal assault. He gave himself a brief moment to push away the conflicting feelings of guilt and satisfaction at this, before focusing on the person again.

“It’s okay that you don’t trust us, and it’s okay that you want to go home… If you let us help you, we will do our best to get you there.”

There was a long silence. Then:

“I want my mummy.”

“I know,” said Eighty-Seven, and he did. He saw her in this person- this ‘child’ as Hooks thought of them. He saw the beautiful, beloved woman who kissed away bruises and softly hummed as she worked the golden fields surrounding their home. He saw her warm smile fade and the memories turn cold.

Something inside of Eighty-Seven _burned_.

“I know,” he repeated. He didn’t say it was okay. “I’m gonna unlock your… I’m gonna unlock this door now.”

The ‘child’ sniffled but nodded, edging closer to the cage hatch as Eighty-Seven keyed in the code. As soon as it popped open, they threw themselves out and into Eighty-Seven, arms wrapped as far around his chest as they could reach. The sobs echoed down the corridor of cages, filling what would otherwise have been silence.

And like a switch had been turned on all the other cages started to rattle and shout and cry. Eighty-Seven swallowed dryly and looked up from what (in better lighting) turned out to be a sobbing five-year-old humanoid boy, and turned to the pirates. They were silently staring at the scene, unmoving with a look of horror etched on both of their faces. Eighty-Seven turned back to the little boy and tapped him on the shoulder, making him look up.

“This is… my friend, Hooks,” he lied, pointing at the startled pirate who swiftly forced his disgusted expression into a twisted smile. “He’s always smiling because smiling makes him feel happy. Don’t worry. He’s going to have a chat with you and check if you need anything while me and my other friends help out all these people.”

The boy squeezed tighter, burying his face into Eighty-Seven’s chest, not wanting to let go. Eighty-Seven, unused to such affection, forced down a flinch at the feeling of being trapped. Instead, he hummed thoughtfully and placed his hand on the tangled mess of hair atop the boy’s head, concentrating on projecting a feeling of calm.

“He may not look it, but the guy’s really nice, don’t let the beard fool you. He’ll call you kid, tell you silly jokes and will make sure you’ve got something to eat. And while he does that, I’ll be helping all your friends here and sending them your way. Do you think you could look after them for me?”

The boy stopped crying. The other children had too, hands on the cage bars, little eyes glittering in the dark, staring at Eighty-Seven with something that looked eerily like hunger. Eighty-Seven glanced at them, then down to the boy who slowly nodded.

“Thank you,” Eighty-Seven said, standing up and looking over to Hooks. Hooks shifted from foot to foot but nodded, moving forward as Eighty-Seven and Draffs turned to face the other cages.

It was long work, freeing the children. None of them were older than five and most were two or three years old. There were nineteen of them in total, all cold, all hungry, all scared. And all of them wanted to be near Eighty-Seven. They stared, wide-eyed as he kneeled down in front of them and told them that they were brave even though they were scared. That they were to be looked after and fed and kept warm, like they always should have been. That they didn’t deserve what happened to them. They listened to what he said (not understanding all his words but understanding their meaning) watched his gentle movements and steadfast eyes, and flew into his arms, desperate for any hint of kindness after so much time without any. Eighty-Seven, who had never been hugged before this day, understood completely.

The gaggle of children clumsily tottered after him as he left the hallway of cages, whispering to each other, still scared, still wary, but less so now. He helped them onto the Stranger’s Fortune, the smallest of them gently tucked into his arms. He worked with Hooks to hand out food, somehow knowing who needed help slowing down to eat so they didn’t choke. And he distracted them with a song he’d heard once in Maz’s bar when Draffs came aboard, her hands stained red. There had been a satisfied look on her face which lasted only a heartbeat as Eighty-Seven frowned at her over the children’s heads.

“Child charmin’ may be your talent but singin’ certainly ain’t,” commented Hooks, as they retreated to the kitchen after the last child had finally succumbed to an exhausted slumber. “Next times, skip the swearin’ yeah?”

Eighty-Seven nodded, shadowed eyes crinkling as he rubbed at his jaw.

“Uh, yeah, I didn’t know children aren’t supposed to hear some words.”

Hooks stared at him, leaning back against a counter, and raising a cup of black caff to his lips for a long sip. Finally, he nodded and said: “I reckons you had an odd childhood.”

Eighty-Seven hadn’t had a childhood. He had just been small and then he had been bigger. He changed the subject:

“Is it always like this?”

Hooks didn’t answer straight away. He was watching Eighty-Seven with something unfamiliar but gentle in his eyes.

“I reckons you knows the answer to that.”

Eighty-Seven nodded.

“Go gets some shut eye. I’ll keeps an eye out.”

Eighty-Seven nodded again, thanking Hooks to which the man just waved him off. As he walked along the warm corridors to his room, he reached out his awareness, feeling the children softly sleeping behind him, taking in Draffs as she sat alone in her room, head in hands and not sleeping, and Maz at the helm, tirelessly reaching out every contact she knew in the resistance. She’d found the families of eight of the children so far. Four of the children no longer had any family and the rest were still unaccounted for. Eighty-Seven knew Maz would keep on looking though. He went to bed confident that the slaver’s victims would be well cared for.

It still took him a long time to fall asleep.

* * *

Captain Phasma was staring into space, the sheen of her helmet reflecting the stars and her black visor reflecting the flashing lights of the consul.

“Slavery is abhorrent. You know that,” she said. Eighty-Seven didn’t say anything. She glanced at him then quickly looked away, her hands tightening into fists.

“I do not understand why you keep these... people, Agent.”

A man stood beside her, face weathered and scarred. A blue tattoo decorated his left cheek which crinkled when he smiled.

“Oh, each of these folks is particularly, specifically useful to me, Phasma. Much like how your stormtroopers are useful to you.”

The captain looked again at Eighty-Seven and it was then that he realised that this was a dream. Captain Phasma never looked at him like that. She never thought of Stormtroopers as slaves. And she _never_ felt regret for what had been done to them. Phasma stared at him, eyes wide and imploring under her mask, and Eighty-Seven turned away.

“Hey buddy.”

Eighty-Seven’s breathing stuttered. He spun around, the interior of the cruise-destroyer blurring and blending into the grey interior of a launch pad. It was full of people running to and fro, wearing red helmets and orange jumpsuits, shouting out orders and clapping each other on the back. But Eighty-Seven wasn’t paying attention to them; he was staring at the man.

It was the man from before, the one he saw beneath Maz’s castle. The one who stood beneath the glowing tree, who spoke about pilots, who smiled at him and put his hand on his shoulder. This time he wasn’t doing any of that though. He was instead speaking to a faceless person, laughing with them before he crawled beneath his ship and cracked open the wiring. The air was thick with oil and sweat but the man breathed in easily with a content smile. Eighty-Seven smiled back, leaning under the metal belly of the machine, and watching as the man worked, monkey wrench clenched between his teeth.

“You know, I’m never gonna call you a number,” the man piped up in a conversational tone, as he plucked the tool from his lips and concentrated on his work. Eighty-Seven started and scrambled forward on hands and knees, grinning excitedly.

“You can see me? Who are you?”

The man didn’t respond; he kept working but he shifted to the side and patted at the space next to him. Eighty-Seven frowned, excitement fading into confusion but he still joined him. He lay down, awkward and ungainly as he shuffled onto his back. But when he looked up, he saw not the underbelly of a ship but a sky full of stars.

There was a hand in his, lifting it up and using it to point at the little balls of light floating above them. The man toothily grinned at him, mouth moving as he spoke but no words coming out. Another hand slipped into Eighty-Seven’s, firm and steady. He looked around and found the woman with the three buns laughing at something the other had said, her earth brown eyes shining with the lights from above. 

“You know what was going to happen to those children, don’t you?” she asked, words not matching the movements of her lips. Eighty-Seven nodded and her eyes shined even brighter.

“It’s going to happen again. It will _keep_ happening,” she whispered.

Eighty-Seven looked away but stopped as he felt the hands in his tighten, fingers gently but firmly holding on. He stared at them both. They were smiling at him, full of painful joy and fierce beauty. Eighty-Seven turned to look back up at the stars, holding the hands of the man and woman as tightly as he could.

Later, when he woke up under a dog-pile of nineteen children, he sighed, gently pushed a little grimy foot out of his face and went back to sleep with a smile.

* * *

It took them five days to get all the children to safety. Some went home to sobbing parents, held and kissed and worshipped for the simple fact that they were alive, that they were with the ones who loved them again. Some went home to quiet fury, gentle hands and patient grief, faced by family and friends who had lost so much but had miraculously managed to gain something back and were **never** going to lose it again. Some didn’t go home. They couldn’t. Instead, they were met with a series of kind faced strangers who told them they would look after them now. The last couple of children, when faced with the man who offered to take them in, clutched at Eighty-Seven. Little hands looped over his belt, pulled at his sleeves and wound their way around his legs. He knelt down on the cold metal floor of the ship hanger and tried to think of the right words. The girl and boy stared at him intently, eyes flickering between him and the man who offered to take them, heads tilting to the side. Uninvited, the faint image rose from his memories of two stormtroopers, one only as high as his hips and the other just up to his chest, crouched around a smoking weapon, heads tilted curiously.

Eighty-Seven found the words he needed.

“This man look kind, yeah? He smiles and calls you sweetheart and honey,” he paused and glanced over at the man, speaking with Maz a couple dozen meters away, then lowered his voice. “That doesn’t mean he’s a good man though. The way someone looks and speaks doesn’t tell you if they’re kind. It’s what they _do_ that shows they are kind. And this man will introduce you to his partner and help you know them. He’ll cook homemade fritzle fries and ask if you want to help taste test them. He wants to teach you and hug you and love you but he’ll also be patient and wait until you’re ready for it. He _will_ look after you.”

The ones who wouldn’t or couldn’t didn’t even get to meet the children. Maz knew to listen to Eighty-Seven when it came to things like this. The whole crew seemed to know this now, understanding that, with Eighty-Seven’s soft nod, these children would be well cared for.

There was still a sour note to the air though when the two children finally agreed to be taken. Eighty-Seven watched as the ship took off. The children were waving at the port hole, crying but smiling too. He could feel their bittersweet joy even as the miles between them grew. They continued to wave, even as he fell out of sight, even as the planet faded into a speck. They continued to wave. Eighty-Seven could feel it.

He wasn’t able to see them do this. They knew that… and yet they still waved. Eighty-Seven had never done something so pointless as that when he was their age. He never said goodbye to anyone. He never even had the chance and if he had… it wouldn’t have been like that. Eighty-Seven frowned at hollow ache building in his chest.

It was only when the feeling of the children’s fevered goodbyes faded into a whisper of a whisper that he let go and turned to Maz. She stood at the top of the gangway, waiting for him with a strange look on her face. He walked up to her, stopping when their heads were level.

“I want to do this again,” he told her, eyes earnest and voice strong. “I want to keep helping.”

“I know,” was all Maz said. She smiled as she spoke but it felt sad.

* * *

Eighty-Seven kept helping. Over the next month, he went on raid after raid, stealing stolen goods and freeing stolen people. And every night, back on Takodana, he carried on helping. No longer shying away from the crueller thoughts that drifted from the bar, no longer hesitating to share the secrets he gleaned and no longer cowering from those who thought on their allegiance to the First Order.

He went to Maz each night and told her all he knew. And each night, with every word spoken and every secret spilled, the sadness in Maz grew and grew until Eighty-Seven finally couldn’t help but ask:

“What’s wrong? Why are you sad?”

Maz stopped cleaning the twisted pint glass in her hands and put it down with a sigh.

“…I need to show you something.”

She led him to the catacombs and Eighty-Seven didn’t hesitate to follow her; no longer did he fear the dark. If he concentrated, he could feel echos from the force, from what had once happened here. But he didn’t. Instead, he focused on Maz, who had taken off her goggles and was staring into the shadows around her with a heavy sense of resignation. Eighty-Seven stopped beside her, waiting for her to say something about it but she didn’t. She shook her head, led him towards one of the chambers off the side and started rummaging through the boxes there.

“I should have given this to you a long time ago.” She turned around and held up her hand. Whatever Eighty-Seven had been expecting, a clunky metal tube wasn’t it. His brow crumpled in confusion and he opened his mouth to ask why she wanted to give him what looked like scrap metal- only to stop as his senses caught up with his brain. The tube had a blur. It was _living_.

He knew what it was.

“No,” he breathed, voice wavering and eyes locked onto the device as he backed away, half tripping over the junk and old lock boxes strewn across the cell floor. “I can’t have that. I _can’t_.”

Maz held herself still and didn’t react. Eighty-Seven couldn’t feel _anything_ from her. It was like he’d been deafened by the feeling coming from the thing in her hand. Although deafened wasn’t the right word. It wasn’t screaming or shouting, it was just there, and loud for the fact of it.

He could hear it, hear _him_. The man who made it, who put it together with part of himself buried inside the hilt. This weapon belonged to someone strong, to someone who faced pride and cruelty and pain, and won, someone who never let it overwhelm them. Until it did.

A lightsaber. This… _thing_ was dangerous and amazing and _not_ meant to be anywhere near a Stormtrooper like him. Maz seemed to disagree.

“You’re not a pirate, Bright-Smile. You know that. When we free people, when we take things that aren’t ours, there’s a difference there,” she reached up, tapping Eighty-Seven lightly on the bridge of his nose, between his wide brown eyes. 

“I-” Eighty-Seven swallowed dryly and tried again. “I want to be one. A pirate. I do.”

“I know,” said Maz sadly. “But I also know you are meant for _so_ much more than this.”

She held up the lightsaber again and Eighty-Seven laughed. How could he not?

“You’re wrong. I’m not. I’m nothing like a Jedi. You wouldn’t say that if you knew-”

“That you were with the First Order?” 

Eighty-Seven stopped laughing. He stopped backing away. He stopped _everything_.

“I found the ship you came in, a week after you joined us. It was stolen and burned but I found enough to track where it came from, to know what you _were_.”

Eighty-Seven continued to say nothing.

“You can’t change the past. But you can learn from it. You _have_ learned from it. And you deserve to wield a lightsaber, believe this.”

She placed the weapon, the lightsaber, in Eighty-Seven’s shaking hand and-

Running through the sand

_ screaming for the dead _

_**screams of the dead** _

confusion

_ comfort _

_**love** _

loss

_-_ _**excruciating loss** \- _

fear

_**fury** _

_ forgiveness _

A hand in his _, **burning hot** but gentle. _

A feeling of kindness _, of amused **tolerance** … _but _…_

“No,” said Eighty-Seven again, but this time his voice didn’t shake. He opened his eyes to find himself on his knees, looking right into Maz’s tired, ancient eyes. “I- I could take this. I could even use this but it- it isn’t _meant_ for me. There’s someone it’s waiting for.”

Slowly, she nodded with a resigned, disappointed smile. “Fine. I believe you… let me know when you find it’s true owner.”

Eighty-Seven nodded, gently placing the sabre back into the box, only to hesitate as he noticed what else was inside. Slowly, he reached in and picked up a broken, empty hilt, filled with wires and a surging echo of power.

“Maz… how do you make a lightsaber?”


End file.
